The current pronunciation, which is extremely unusual in English speaking countries, is almost certainly a result of a printing error in some copies of the City Charter of March 18, 1816 (though not on the original document), the error was repeated commonly enough throughout the rest of the 19th century that the original pronunciation was lost and in 1890 the "h" was removed in order to make it easier to spell. After a public campaign the original spelling was officially restored by the United States Board on Geographic Names in 1911.[21]

The area of the Ohio headwaters was long inhabited by the Shawnee and several other settled groups of Native Americans,[22] the first known European to enter the region was the French explorer/trader Robert de La Salle from Quebec during his 1669 expedition down the Ohio River.[23] European pioneers, primarily Dutch, followed in the early 18th century. Michael Bezallion was the first to describe the forks of the Ohio in a 1717 manuscript, and later that year European fur traders established area posts and settlements.[24]

During this period, the powerful nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, based in New York, had maintained control of much of the Ohio Valley as hunting grounds by right of conquest after defeating other tribes. By the terms of the 1768 Treaty of Fort Stanwix, the Penns were allowed to purchase the modern region from the Iroquois. A 1769 survey referenced the future city as the "Manor of Pittsburgh".[29] Both the Colony of Virginia and the Province of Pennsylvania claimed the region under their colonial charters until 1780, when they agreed under a federal initiative to extend the Mason–Dixon line westward, placing Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania. On March 8, 1771 Bedford County, Pennsylvania was created to govern the frontier, on April 16, 1771, the city's first civilian local government was created as Pitt Township.[30][31] William Teagarden was the first constable, and William Troop was the first clerk.[32]

Following the American Revolution, the village of Pittsburgh continued to grow. One of its earliest industries was boat building for settlers of the Ohio Country; in 1784, Thomas Viceroy completed a town plan which was approved by the Penn family attorney. Pittsburgh became a possession of Pennsylvania in 1785, the following year, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was started, and in 1787, the Pittsburgh Academy was chartered. Unrest during the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 resulted in federal troops being sent to the area. By 1797, glass manufacture began, while the population grew to around 1,400. Settlers came via routes over the Appalachian Mountains or through the Great Lakes. Fort Pitt (now Pittsburgh) at the source of the Ohio River became the main base for settlers moving into the Northwest Territory.

The War of 1812 cut off the supply of British goods, stimulating American industry. By 1815, Pittsburgh was producing significant quantities of iron, brass, tin, and glass, on March 18, 1816, the 46-year-old local government became a city. In the 1830s, many Welsh people from the Merthyr steelworks immigrated to the city following the aftermath of the Merthyr Rising. By the 1840s, Pittsburgh was one of the largest cities west of the Allegheny Mountains, the Great Fire of Pittsburgh destroyed over a thousand buildings in 1845. The city rebuilt with the aid of Irish immigrants and by 1857, Pittsburgh's 1,000 factories were consuming 22 million coal bushels yearly. Coal mining and iron manufacturing attracted waves of European immigrants to the area.

In 1901, Carnegie merged several companies into U.S. Steel. By 1910, Pittsburgh was the nation's 8th-largest city, accounting for between a third and a half of national steel output, the city's population swelled to over a half million with European immigration via Ellis Island in New York harbor. By 1940, non-Hispanic whites were 90.6% of the city's population.[33] Pittsburgh also became a main destination of the African-American Great Migration from the rural South during the first half of the 20th century.[34] Limited initially by discrimination, some 95% percent of the men became unskilled steel workers,[35] during World War II, demand increased and area mills operated 24 hours a day to produce 95 million tons of steel for the war effort.[26] This resulted in the highest levels of air pollution in the city's almost century of industry, the city's reputation as the "arsenal of democracy"[36][37] was being overshadowed by James Parton's 1868 observation of Pittsburgh being "hell with the lid off."[38]

Following the war, the city launched a clean air and civic revitalization project known as the "Renaissance," cleaning up the air and the rivers, the "Renaissance II" project followed in 1977, focused on cultural and neighborhood development. The industrial base continued to expand through the 1970s, but beginning in the early 1980s both the area's steel and electronics industries imploded during national industrial restructuring. There were massive layoffs from mill and plant closures.[10]

In the later 20th century, the area shifted its economic base to education, tourism, and services, largely based on healthcare/medicine, finance, and high technology such as robotics, although Pittsburgh successfully shifted its economy and remained viable, the city's population has never rebounded to its industrial-era highs. While 680,000 people lived in the city proper in 1950, a combination of suburbanization and economic turbulence resulted in a decrease in city population, even as the metropolitan area population increased again.

During the late 2000s recession, Pittsburgh was economically strong, adding jobs when most cities were losing them, it was one of the few cities in the United States to see housing property values rise. Between 2006 and 2011, the Pittsburghmetropolitan statistical area (MSA) experienced over 10% appreciation in housing prices—the highest appreciation of the largest 25 MSAs in the United States, as 22 of the top 25 MSAs saw a depreciation of housing values.[39] Pittsburgh's story of economic regeneration was the inspiration of President Barack Obama to host the 2009 G-20 Pittsburgh summit.[40]

Pittsburgh has a total area of 58.3 square miles (151 km2), of which 55.6 square miles (144 km2) is land and 2.8 square miles (7.3 km2) (or 4.75%) is water. The 80th meridian west passes directly through the city's downtown.

Many Pittsburgh neighborhoods are steeply sloped with two-lane roads. More than a quarter of neighborhood names make reference to "hills," "heights," or similar features.[a]

The steps of Pittsburgh comprise some 712 sets of outdoor public stairways with 44,645 treads and 24,090 vertical feet, they include hundreds of streets composed entirely of stairs, and many other steep streets with stairs for sidewalks.[42] Many provide vistas of the Pittsburgh area while attracting hikers and fitness walkers.[43]

Bike and walking trails have been built to border many of the city's rivers and hollows, but steep hills and variable weather can make biking a challenge, the Great Allegheny Passage and Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath connect the city directly to downtown Washington, D.C. (some 335 miles (539 km) away) with a continuous bike/running trail.

The city consists of the Downtown area, called the Golden Triangle,[44] and four main areas surrounding it, these surrounding areas are subdivided into distinct neighborhoods (in total, Pittsburgh contains 90 neighborhoods).[45] Relative to downtown, these areas are known as the North Side, South Side/South Hills, East End, and West End.

The North Side is home to various neighborhoods in transition. What is known today as Pittsburgh's North Side was once known as Allegheny City, and operated as a city independently of Pittsburgh. Allegheny City merged with Pittsburgh under great protest from its citizens, the North Side is primarily composed of residential neighborhoods and is noteworthy for well-constructed and architecturally interesting homes. Many buildings date from the 19th century and are constructed of brick or stone and adorned with decorative woodwork, ceramic tile, slate roofs and stained glass, the North Side is also home to many popular attractions such as Heinz Field, PNC Park, Carnegie Science Center, National Aviary, Andy Warhol Museum, Mattress Factory installation art museum, Children's Museum of Pittsburgh, Randyland, Highmark SportsWorks, Penn Brewery, and Allegheny Observatory. The North Side is also home to Allegheny General Hospital, which is listed among the 1999 US News & World Report 2000 best hospitals nationwide.

The South Side was once the site of the Pennsylvania Railroad railyards and associated dense, inexpensive housing for mill and railroad workers, since the late 20th century, the city undertook a Main Street program in cooperation with the National Trust for Historic Preservation, encouraging design and landscape improvements on East Carson Street, and supporting new retail. The area has become a local Pittsburgher destination, the South Side is one of the most popular neighborhoods in the city in which to own a home. The value of homes in the South Side has increased in value by about 10% annually for the past 10 years.[48] East Carson Street has developed as one of the most vibrant areas of the city, packed with diverse shopping, ethnic eateries, vibrant nightlife, and live music venues.

Several neighborhoods on the edges of the city are less urban, featuring tree-lined streets, yards and garages, with a more suburban character. Oakland, the South Side, the North Side, and the Golden Triangle are characterized by more density of housing, walking neighborhoods, and a more diverse, urban feel.

Pittsburgh falls within the borders of Appalachia as defined by the Appalachian Regional Commission, and has long been characterized as the "northern urban industrial anchor of Appalachia."[52] In its post-industrial state, Pittsburgh has been characterized as the "Paris of Appalachia",[53][54][55][56] recognizing the city's cultural, educational, healthcare, and technological resources, as well as its status as Appalachia's largest city.

Pittsburgh lies in the humid continental climate zone (KöppenDfa).[57] The city and river valleys lie in the USDA plant hardiness zone 6b while higher elevated areas lie in zone 6a,[58] the area has four distinct seasons: winters are cold, cloudy, and moderately snowy, springs and falls generally mild with moderate levels of sunshine, and summers warm to hot and humid. As measured by percent possible sunshine, summer is by far the sunniest season.[59]

The warmest month of the year in Pittsburgh is July, with a 24-hour average of 72.6 °F (22.6 °C). Conditions are often humid, and combined with highs reaching 90 °F (32 °C) on an average 9.5 days a year,[60] a considerable heat index arises. The coldest month is January, when the 24-hour average is 28.4 °F (−2.0 °C), and lows of 0 °F (−18 °C) or below can be expected on an average 2.6 nights per year.[60] Officially, record temperatures range from −22 °F (−30 °C), on January 19, 1994 to 103 °F (39 °C), which occurred three times, most recently on July 16, 1988; the record cold daily maximum is −3 °F (−19 °C), which occurred three times, most recently the day of the all-time record low, while, conversely, the record warm daily minimum is 82 °F (28 °C) on July 1, 1901.[60][b] Due to elevation and location on the windward side of the Appalachian Mountains, 100 °F (38 °C)+ readings are very rare, and were last seen on July 15, 1995.[60]

Average annual precipitation is 38.2 inches (970 mm) and total precipitation is greatest in May while least in October; annual precipitation has historically ranged from 22.65 in (575 mm) in 1930 to 57.41 in (1,458 mm) in 2004.[61] On average, December and January have the greatest number of precipitation days. Snowfall averages 41.4 inches (105 cm) per season, but has historically ranged from 8.8 in (22 cm) in 1918–19 to 82.0 in (208 cm) in 1950–51.[62] There is an average of 59 clear days and 103 partly cloudy days per year, while 203 days are cloudy;[63] in terms of annual percent-average possible sunshine received, Pittsburgh (45%) is similar to Seattle (43%).[64]

"It's the best it's been in the lifetime for virtually every resident in this county...We've seen a steady decrease in pollution levels over the past decade and certainly over the past 20, 30, 40, 50 years or more."

“

”

Guillermo Cole

In a 2013 ranking of 277 metropolitan areas in the United States, the American Lung Association (ALA) ranked only six U.S. metro areas as having higher amounts of short-term particle pollution, and only seven U.S. metro areas having higher amounts of year-round particle pollution than Pittsburgh. For ozone (smog) pollution, Pittsburgh was ranked 24th among U.S. metro areas.[66][67] The area has improved its air quality with every annual survey, the ALA's rankings have been disputed by the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD), since data from only the worst of the region's 20 air quality monitors is considered by the ALA, without any context or averaging. The lone monitor used is located immediately downwind and adjacent to U.S. Steel's Clairton Coke Works, the nation's largest coke mill, and several municipalities outside the city's jurisdiction of pollution controls, leading to possible confusion that Pittsburgh itself is the source or center of the emissions cited in the survey,[68] the region's readings also reflect pollution swept in from Ohio and West Virginia, though both are outside the jurisdictional powers of local leadership.[69]

Although the county was still below the "pass" threshold, the report showed substantial improvement over previous decades on every air quality measure. Fewer than 15 high ozone days were reported between 2007 and 2009, and just 10 between 2008 and 2010, compared to more than 40 between 1997 and 1999.[70] ACHD spokesman Guillermo Cole stated that "It's the best it's been in the lifetime for virtually every resident in this county...We've seen a steady decrease in pollution levels over the past decade and certainly over the past 20, 30, 40, 50 years, or more."[71]

The local rivers continue to have pollution levels exceeding EPA limits; however, fish catches in the city in 2007 were found to be more than twice as free of pollutants than catches on the Canadian side of Lake Erie and six times as free of pollutants than Allegheny River catches of the New York border area.[72] There are other concerns about local storm sewers and waste treatment plants frequently overflowing untreated sewage into local waterways, due to flood conditions and antiquated infrastructure.

The city contains 31,000 trees on 900 miles of streets, by the last count conducted in 2005. A 2011 analysis of Pittsburgh's total tree cover, which involved sampling more than 200 small plots throughout the city, showed a value of between $10 and $13 million in annual benefits based on the "urban forest" contributions to aesthetics, energy use and air quality. Energy savings from shade, impact on city air and water quality, and the boost in property values were taken into account in the analysis, the city spends $850,000 annually on street tree planting and maintenance.[73]

At the 2010 Census, there were 305,704 people residing in Pittsburgh, a decrease of 8.6% since 2000. 66.0% of the population was White, 25.8% Black or African American, 0.2% American Indian and Alaska Native, 4.4% Asian, 0.3% Other, and 2.3% mixed. 2.3% of Pittsburgh's population was of Hispanic or Latino origin of any race. Non-Hispanic Whites were 64.8% of the population in 2010,[77] compared to 78.7% in 1970.[78]

Map of racial distribution in Pittsburgh, 2010 U.S. Census, each dot is 25 people: White, Black, Asian, Hispanic or Other (yellow)

The five largest European ethnic groups in the city are German (19.7%), Irish (15.8%), Italian (11.8%), Polish (8.4%), and English (4.6%), while the metropolitan area is approximately 22% German-American, 15.4% Italian American and 11.6% Irish American. Pittsburgh has one of the largest Italian-American communities in the nation,[80] the fifth-largest Ukrainian community.[81] Pittsburgh has over 200,000 Croatian people making it the city with the most extensive Croatian community in the United States.[82]

According to a 2010 ARDA study, residents include 773,341 "Catholics"; 326,125 "Mainline Protestants"; 174,119 "Evangelical Protestants;" 20,976 "Black Protestants;" and 16,405 "Orthodox Christians," with 996,826 listed as "unclaimed" and 16,405 as "other" in the metro area.[83]

There were 143,739 households, out of which 21.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 31.2% were married couples living together, 16.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 48.4% were non-families. 39.4% of all households were made up of individuals and 13.7% had someone living alone who is 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.17 and the average family size was 2.95.

In the city, the population was spread out, with 19.9% under the age of 18, 14.8% from 18 to 24, 28.6% from 25 to 44, 20.3% from 45 to 64, and 16.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years, for every 100 females there were 90.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 87.8 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $28,588, and the median income for a family was $38,795. Males had a median income of $32,128 versus $25,500 for females, the per capita income for the city was $18,816. About 15.0% of families and 20.4% of the population were below the poverty line, including 27.5% of those under the age of 18 and 13.5% ages 65 or older.

In a 2002 study, Pittsburgh ranked 22nd of 69 urban places in the U.S. in the number of residents 25 years or older who had completed a bachelor's degree, at 31%.[84] Pittsburgh ranked 15th of the 69 places in the number of residents 25 years or older who completed a high school degree, at 84.7%.[85]

Pittsburgh has adapted since the collapse of its century-long steel and electronics industries, the region has shifted to high technology, robotics, health care, nuclear engineering, tourism, biomedical technology, finance, education, and services. Total annual payroll of the region's technology industries, when taken in aggregate, exceeded $10.8 billion in 2007,[92] and in 2010 there were 1,600 technology companies.[93] A National Bureau of Economic Research 2014 report named Pittsburgh the second-best U.S. city for intergenerational economic mobility[94] or the American Dream.[95] Reflecting the citywide shift from industry to technology, former factories have been renovated as modern office space. Google has research and technology offices in a refurbished 1918–1998 Nabisco factory, a complex known as Bakery Square.[96] Some of the factory's original equipment, such as a large dough mixer, were left standing in homage to the site's industrial roots.[97] Pittsburgh's transition from its industrial heritage has earned it praise as "the poster child for managing industrial transition".[98] Other major cities in the northeast and mid-west have increasingly borrowed from Pittsburgh's model in order to renew their industries and economic base.[99]

Pittsburgh is the poster child for managing industrial transition.

“

”

Dr. Robert Mauro

The largest employer in the city is the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, with 48,000 employees. All hospitals, outpatient clinics, and doctor's office positions combine for 116,000 jobs, approximately 10% of the jobs in the region. An analyst recently observed of the city's medical sector: "That's both more jobs and a higher share of the region's total employment than the steel industry represented in the 1970s."[100]

Top publicly traded companies
in the Pittsburgh region for 2016
(ranked by revenues)with Metropolitan and U.S. ranks

The nonprofit arts and cultural industry in Allegheny County generates $341 million in economic activity that supports over 10,000 full-time equivalent jobs with nearly $34 million in local and state taxes raised.[106]

Hundreds of major films have been shot partially or wholly in Pittsburgh. The Dark Knight Rises was largely filmed in Downtown, Oakland, and the North Shore. Pittsburgh has also teamed up with a Los Angeles-based production company, and has built the largest and most advanced movie studio in the eastern United States.[107]

Pittsburgh is home to the world's largest furry convention known as Anthrocon, which has been held annually at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center since 2006. In 2013 Anthrocon drew over 5,000 visitors and had an economic impact of $6.2 million.[114]

The Pittsburgh English dialect, commonly called Pittsburghese, was influenced by Scots-Irish, Welsh, German, Central European, and Eastern European immigrants.[citation needed] Locals who speak the dialect are sometimes referred to as "Yinzers" (from the local word "yinz" [var. yunz], a blended form of "you ones," similar to "y'all" and "you all" in the South). Common Pittsburghese terms are: slippy (slippery), redd up (clean up), jagger bush (thorn bush), and gum bands (rubber bands), the dialect is also notable for dropping the verb "to be." In Pittsburghese one would say "the car needs washed" instead of "needs to be washed," "needs washing," or "needs a wash." The dialect has some tonal similarities to other nearby regional dialects of Erie and Baltimore, but is noted for its somewhat staccato rhythms. The staccato qualities of the dialect are thought to originate either from Welsh or other European languages, the many local peculiarities have prompted The New York Times to describe Pittsburgh as, "the Galapagos Islands of American dialect."[129] The lexicon itself contains notable loans from Polish and other European languages; examples include babushka, pierogi, and halušky.[130]

Pittsburgh often places high in lists of the nation's most livable cities, after placing fourth and first in the first two editions of Places Rated Almanac, Pittsburgh finished third in 1989, fifth in 1993, 14th in 1997, and 12th in 2000, before reclaiming the number one spot in 2007.[131] The survey's primary author, David Savageau, has noted that Pittsburgh is the only city to finish in the top 20 of every edition.

In 2005, 2009, and 2011, Pittsburgh was named the most livable city in the United States and in those years, between the 26th- and 29th-most livable cities worldwide by The Economist.[132][133] Pittsburgh ranked No. 28 in the book Cities Ranked and Rated (2004) by Bert Sperling and Peter Sander.

In 2010, Forbes and Yahoo! listed Pittsburgh as the most livable city in the United States.[134][135] A month later, Forbes named Pittsburgh the 7th best place to raise a family.[136] Pittsburgh was ranked the 4th best city for working mothers by Forbes in 2010[137] and the city was ranked as one of the best for entrepreneurs by Entrepreneur.[138]Forbes named Pittsburgh, in an 8-way tie, the world's 10th cleanest city for 2007.[139]

The city was listed among the 10 best U.S. places to retire in 2012 by CBS Money Watch and U.S. News.[143][144] In February 2013 Forbes again placed Pittsburgh among its 10 most unexpectedly romantic world locations;[145] in April 2014, Niche rated Pittsburgh the 15th best city for millennials.[146]

Livability rankings typically consider factors such as cost of living, crime, and cultural opportunities. Pittsburgh has a low cost of living compared to other northeastern U.S. cities. According to the Federal Housing Board the average price for a 3- to 4-bedroom, 2-bath family home in Pittsburgh for 2004 is $162,000, well below the national average of $264,540. Average 2010 rent for all bedrooms in Pittsburgh was $789, this compares to the nationwide average of $1,087.[147] Pittsburgh also has five city parks and several parks managed by the Nature Conservancy, the largest of which, Frick Park, provides a 664 acres (269 ha) of woodland park with extensive hiking and biking trails throughout steep valleys and wooded slopes. Birding enthusiasts love to visit Clayton Hill area of Frick Park, where well over 100 species of birds have been recorded.[148]

Enhancing Pittsburgh's livability is that the area faces little natural disaster risk such as an earthquake, hurricane, wildfire, or tornado. Forbes ranked Pittsburgh as having the 2nd lowest natural disaster risk in the nation for 2009.[149]Greater Pittsburgh is not entirely free of natural disasters, however. Residents living in extremely low-lying areas near the rivers or one of the 1,400 creeks and streams experience occasional floods,[150] such as those caused when the remnants of Hurricane Ivan hit rainfall records in 2004.[151] River flooding is relatively rare due to federal flood control efforts extensively managing locks, dams, and reservoirs.[150][152][153] Residents living near smaller tributary streams are less protected from occasional flooding, and the cost of a comprehensive flood control program for the region has been estimated at a prohibitive $50 billion.[150]

Pittsburgh hosted the first professional football game and the first World Series. The city boasts several professional teams and in 2009 the city has won the Sporting News title of "Best Sports City" in the United States.[154] and Sperling's Best Places "top 15 cities for baseball" in 2013.[155] College sports also have large followings with the University of Pittsburgh in football and sharing Division I basketball fans with Robert Morris and Duquesne.

[t]his is the perfect blend of location, history, design, comfort and baseball…The best stadium in baseball is in Pittsburgh.

“

”

ESPN

The Pittsburgh Pirates baseball team, often referred to as the Bucs or the Buccos (derived from buccaneer), is the city's oldest professional sports franchise having been founded in 1881, and plays in the Central Division of the National League. The Pirates are nine-time Pennant winners and five-time World Series Champions, were in the first World Series (1903) and claim two pre-World Series titles in 1901 and 1902, the Pirates play in PNC Park, annually ranked as one of the sports best venues; ESPN.com stated: "[t]his is the perfect blend of location, history, design, comfort and baseball…The best stadium in baseball is in Pittsburgh."[158]PNC Park hosted the team's MLB record-tying fifth All-Star game in 2006.

Pittsburgh also has a rich Negro League history, with the former Pittsburgh Crawfords and the Homestead Grays credited with as many as 14 league titles and 11 Hall of Famers between them in the 1930s and 1940s, while the Keystones fielded teams in the 1920s. In addition, in 1971 the Pirates were the first Major League team to field an all-minority lineup. One sportswriter claimed, "No city is more synonymous with black baseball than Pittsburgh."[159]

The city's most popular team is the NFL'sPittsburgh Steelers, named after the distribution company the Pittsburgh Steeling company established in 1927. News of the team has preempted news of elections and other events, and are important to the region and its diaspora, the Steelers have been owned by the Rooney family since the team's founding in 1933, show consistency in coaching (only three coaches since the 1960s all with the same basic philosophy) and are noted as one of sports' most respectable franchises.[citation needed] The Steelers have a long waiting list for season tickets, and have sold out every home game since 1972,[161] the team won four Super Bowls in a six-year span in the 1970s, a fifth Super Bowl in 2006, and a league record sixth Super Bowl in 2009. Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 they have qualified for the most NFL playoff berths (28) and have played in (15) and hosted (11) the most NFL conference championship games.[citation needed]

The NHL's Pittsburgh Penguins have played in Pittsburgh since the team's founding in 1967, the team has won 6 Eastern Conference titles (1991, 1992, 2008, 2009, 2016 and 2017) and 5 Stanley Cup championships (1991, 1992, 2009, 2016 and 2017). Since 1999, Hall of Famer and back-to-back playoff MVP Mario Lemieux has served as Penguins owner, until moving into the PPG Paints Arena in 2010 (when it known as Consol Energy Center), the team played their home games at the world's first retractable domed stadium, the Civic Arena, or in local parlance "The Igloo".[163]

Ice hockey has had a regional fan base since the 1890s semi-pro Keystones. The city's first ice rink dates back to 1889, when there was an ice rink at the Casino in Schenley Park, from 1896 to 1956, the Exposition Building on the Allegheny River near The Point and Duquesne Gardens in Oakland offered indoor skating.[164]

The NHL awarded one of its first franchises to the city in 1924 on the strength of the back-to-back USAHA championship winning Pittsburgh Yellow Jackets featuring future Hall of Famers and a Stanley Cup winning coach, the NHL's Pittsburgh Pirates made several Stanley Cup playoff runs with a future Hall of Famer before folding from Great Depression financial pressures. Hockey survived with the Pittsburgh Hornets farm team (1936–1967) and their seven finals appearances and three championships in 18 playoff seasons.

The Duquesne University Dukes and the University of Pittsburgh Panthers have played college basketball in the city since 1914 and 1905 respectively. Pitt and Duquesne have played the annual City Game since 1932. Duquesne was the city's first team to appear in a Final Four (1940), obtain a number one AP Poll ranking (1954),[166] and to win a post-season national title, the 1955 National Invitation Tournament on its second straight trip to the NIT title game. Duquesne is the only college program to produce back-to-back NBA #1 overall draft picks with 1955's Dick Ricketts and 1956's Sihugo Green.[citation needed] Duquesne's Chuck Cooper was the first African American drafted by an NBA team.[167]

The Panthers won two pre-tournament era Helms Athletic FoundationNational Championships in 1928 and 1930, competed in a "national title game" against LSU in 1935, and made a Final Four appearance in 1941. Pitt has won 13 conference titles, qualified for the NCAA tournament 25 times including a post season tournament every season since 1999–2000 and regularly sells out the Petersen Events Center, the program has produced 27 NBA draft picks and 15 All Americans while ranking #1 in the nation as recently as 2009.

Pittsburgh Panthers women's basketball has qualified for 14 post season tournaments (including 4 NCAA tournaments) and boasts of 5 All-Americans selected 6 times with 3 WNBA players. Pitt women began play in 1914 before being reintroduced in 1970. Both Duquesne and Robert Morris also have competitive Division I women's basketball programs.

In 2006, Council President Luke Ravenstahl was sworn in as mayor at age 26, becoming the youngest mayor in the history of any major American city, his successor, Bill Peduto, was sworn in January 6, 2014. Current Pittsburgh City Council members are: Darlene Harris, Theresa Kail-Smith, Natalia Rudiak, Cory O'Conner, R. Daniel Lavelle, Deborah Gross, Dan Gilman, and Rev. Ricky Burgess, they are elected from single-member districts.[168] The president of city council is Bruce Kraus.

Prior to the American Civil War, Pittsburgh was strongly abolitionist, it is considered the birthplace of the national Republican Party,[citation needed] as the party held its first convention here in February 1856. From the Civil War to the 1930s, Pittsburgh was a Republican stronghold, the effects of the Great Depression, combined with entrenched local GOP scandals, resulted in a shift among voters to the Democratic Party. With the exceptions of the 1973 and 1977 elections (where lifelong Democrats ran off the party ticket), Democrats have been elected consecutively to the mayor's office since the 1933 election. The city's current ratio of party registration is 5 to 1 Democrat.[169]

The area's largest law enforcement agency is the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, with close to 1,000 sworn officers, the city also has separate housing and school police departments. Other agencies also provide police protection within the city because of overlapping jurisdictional boundaries, the Allegheny County Sheriff focuses on jail and courthouse security. The Allegheny County Police primarily patrols county-owned parks and airports, while providing detective/investigatory functions for smaller suburbs and the Port Authority police patrols rapid transit. Pennsylvania State Police Troop B provides patrols for the city and immediate suburbs.

Pittsburgh annually ranks as one of America's safest big cities, in 2013 being named the 3rd "most secure" big city by Farmers Insurance,[170] among crime rates of the 60 largest U.S. cities, 43 had more instances of property crime while 16 had less when compared to Pittsburgh. More instances of violent crime were reported in 21 of the largest cities while 37 had less, the FBI recommends against using data for ranking.[171][172] Per 100,000 persons stats (2012):

The first military hospital in U.S. history as well as the first west of the Atlantic Plain—General Edward Hand Hospital—served the area from 1777 to 1845.[189] Since 1847, Pittsburgh has hosted the world's first "Mercy Hospital",[190] this was followed by West Penn hospital in 1848, Passavant Hospital in 1849,[191] the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine in 1883, Children's Hospital in 1887, and Magee Womens Hospital in 1911. In 1954, Allegheny General (AGH) was among the first to administer Cobalt therapy.[192]

Allegheny General, the flagship of WPAHS

In 1980, UPMC announced a $250 million ($825 million today) expansion and also hired transplant pioneer Dr. Thomas Starzl.[193] In 1984, Allegheny General surgeons pioneered modern brain surgery. Dr. Starzl arranged the 1985 liver transplant of 5 year old Amie Garrison as a UPMC surgery team flew to Baylor University, starting its transplant program.[194] Also in 1985, UPMC surgeons Drs. Griffith, Hardesty, and Trento revealed a new device after a heart-lung transplant; in 1986, UPMC announced a $230 million ($503 million today) modernization. In 1996, UPMC's planned Sicily ISMETT branch was approved by the Italian government as transplant surgeons to supervise and deliver the world's third (both earlier ones done at UPMC)--and first public—cross species marrow transplant at University of California, San Francisco.[195] UPMC's Thomas Detre founded the International Society for Bipolar Disorders at a world medical conference in Pittsburgh in 1999.[196]

The $80 million ($111 million today) UPMC Sports Performance Complex for the Pittsburgh Panthers & Pittsburgh Steelers opened in 2000. In 2002, AGH opened its $30 million ($40.6 million today), 5 floor, 100,000 sq. ft., cancer center. The $130 million ($173 million today) 350,000 sq. ft. Hillman Cancer Center opened in 2003 as UPMC entered into an 8-year, $420 million ($533 million today) agreement with IBM to upgrade medical technologies & health information systems.

UPMC has pioneered several world firsts including the first known cystic fibrosis heart-lung transplant (1983), the world's first simultaneous liver and heart transplant operation on a child (6-year-old Stormie Jones in 1984), the youngest heart-lung transplant (9 years old in 1985), the world's first heart-liver-kidney transplant (1989), the world's first heart-liver transplant on an infant (1997),[200] the first pediatric heart-double lung-liver transplant (1998), the nation's first double hand transplant (2009), and the first total forearm and hand transplant (2010), as well as the state's first heart transplant (1968).[201][202]

Children's Hospital

The Lancet published a 2012 UPMC study of two 9 year quadriplegics being able to move a robotic arm by thought, to pick up objects, shake hands, and even eat. Wiring the brain around spine damage to restore arm and leg muscle function was successful using robotic arms controlled via an embedded computer to translate signals near a small group of neurons with 200 needles.[203]

Pittsburgh is home to one of Norfolk Southern Railway's busiest freight corridors, the Pittsburgh Line, and operates up to 70 trains per day through the city, the suburban Conway Rail Yard—originally built in 1889—was the largest freight rail center in the world from 1956 until 1980 and is today the nation's second-largest. CSX, the other major freight railroad in the eastern U.S. also has major operations around Pittsburgh.

The Port of Pittsburgh ranks as the 21st-largest port in the United States with almost 34 million short tons of river cargo for 2011, the port ranked 9th-largest in the U.S. when measured in domestic trade.[207]

Port Authority of Allegheny County, commonly known as the Port Authority, but sometimes referred to by its former nickname "PAT" or "PAT Transit", is the region's mass transit system. While serving only a portion of the Pittsburgh area (the nation's 20th largest metro area), it is the 11th largest transit agency in the nation and helped the region rank 8th on commuters that use non-car means to work, second to only Chicago in metros outside the Northeast corridor.[209] Port Authority runs a network of intracity and intercity bus routes, the Monongahela Inclinefunicular railway (more commonly known as an "incline") on Mount Washington, a light rail system that runs mostly above-ground in the suburbs and underground as a subway in the city, and one of the nation's largest busway systems.[210] The Duquesne Incline is operated by a non-profit preservation trust,[211] but accepts Port Authority passes and charges Port Authority fares.

Between 2007 and 2010, the Port Authority cut annual expenses by $52 million and raised revenues by $14 million to help alleviate a $472 million gap in the state transportation budget.[212][213]

The average amount of time people spend commuting with public transit in Pittsburgh, PA, for example to and from work, on a weekday is 73 min. 23% of public transit riders, ride for more than 2 hours every day. The average amount of time people wait at a stop or station for public transit is 17 min, while 33% of riders wait for over 20 minutes on average every day, the average distance people usually ride in a single trip with public transit is 6.3 km, while 11% travel for over 12 km in a single direction. [214]

^The warmest daily minimum at the current observation location, Pittsburgh Int'l, is only 77 °F (25 °C) on July 23, 2010, and July 16, 1980.[60]

^Mean monthly maxima and minima (i.e. the highest and lowest temperature readings during an entire month or year) calculated based on data at said location from 1981 to 2010.

^Records kept January 1871 to June 1935 at the Weather Bureau Office across the Allegheny River from downtown, at Allegheny County Airport from July 1935 to 14 September 1952, and at Pittsburgh Int'l (KPIT) since 15 September 1952. Due to its river valley and urban location as well as elevation, many of the summertime warm minima temperature records set at the WBO have not even come close to being matched at KPIT, which is at-elevation and located in the western suburbs, for more information, see Threadex

City
–
A city is a large and permanent human settlement. Cities generally have complex systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, a big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs and exurbs. Such cities are associated with metropolitan areas and urban areas. Once a city expands far enough to another city, this region can be deemed a co

1.
1908 map of Piraeus, the port of Athens, showing the grid plan of the city

2.
Ancient Ur of Sumer in present-day Tell el-Mukayyar in Iraq, one of the world's earliest cities

Carnegie Mellon University
–
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools, in 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The universitys 140-acre main campus is 3 miles from

PNC Park
–
PNC Park is a baseball park located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the citys Major League Baseball franchise. It opened during the 2001 MLB season, after the implosion of the Pirates previous home. The ballpark is sponsored by PNC Financial Services, which purchased the rights in 1998. PNC

Duquesne Incline
–
The Duquesne Incline is an inclined plane railroad located near Pittsburghs South Side neighborhood and scaling Mt. Washington. Designed by Samuel Diescher, the incline was completed in 1877 and is 800 feet long,400 feet in height, and is inclined at a 30-degree angle. It is a track gauge of 5 ft. Originally steam powered. It later carried passenge

1.
Duquesne Incline

2.
Lower building

3.
The view upwards when ascending the incline

4.
A wide view of the same car

Cathedral of Learning
–
Standing at 535 feet, the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and the second tallest university building in the world. It is also the second tallest gothic-styled building in the world, the Cathedral of Learning was commissioned in 1921 and ground was broken in 1926. The first class w

1.
Cathedral of Learning

3.
Fountain outside of the Cathedral

4.
Commons Room

University of Pittsburgh
–
The University of Pittsburgh is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1787 after the American Revolutionary War, it was founded on the edge of the American frontier as the Pittsburgh Academy and it developed and was renamed as Western University of Pennsylvania by a change to its charter in 1819. For most of it

3.
The University in 1833 at its location on 3rd Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh

4.
The Cathedral of Learning, the centerpiece of Pitt's campus and the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere

Flag of Pittsburgh
–
The flag of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a tricolor flag featuring vertical bands of black and gold, with the citys coat of arms in the centre. In 2004, the flag was ranked 24th best flag design out of 150 city flags by the North American Vexillological Association, in tribute to the flag, all three professional athletic teams in Pittsburgh in the

1.
Tunnels

2.
City of Pittsburgh

Seal of Pittsburgh
–
The flag of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a tricolor flag featuring vertical bands of black and gold, with the citys coat of arms in the centre. In 2004, the flag was ranked 24th best flag design out of 150 city flags by the North American Vexillological Association, in tribute to the flag, all three professional athletic teams in Pittsburgh in the

1.
Tunnels

2.
City of Pittsburgh

List of nicknames for Pittsburgh
–
This article lists nicknames for the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. City of Bridges Pittsburgh boasts more bridges, owing to its location at the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio, Steel City Pittsburgh and the surrounding area was once one of the largest steel producers in the world, gaining it international renown as such. The U. S. Steel Tower

1.
"The City of Bridges"

2.
Tunnels

Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
–
Allegheny County is a county in the southwestern quarter of the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2014 the population was 1,231,225, making it the second-most populous county in Pennsylvania, Allegheny County is included in the Pittsburgh, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is in the Pittsburgh Designated Market Area, Allegheny County wa

Pennsylvania
–
Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most

Geographic coordinate system
–
A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a

1.
Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.

United States
–
Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean,

U.S. state
–
A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of

1.
U.S. states

List of counties in Pennsylvania
–
The following is a list of the sixty-seven counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The city of Philadelphia is coterminous with Philadelphia County, and governmental functions have been consolidated since 1854, eight of the ten most populous counties are in the southeastern portion of the state, including four

1.
A map of the counties of Pennsylvania in 1836

French colonization of the Americas
–
The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued on into the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, sugar, and furs.

4.
A new map of the north parts of America claimed by France in 1720, according to the London cartographer Herman Moll.

British Empire
–
The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history an

Colony
–
In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state, distinct from the home territory of the sovereign. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies, some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. T

1.
Puerto Rico, considered by some to be "the world's oldest colony"

2.
Chart of non-self-governing territories (as of June 2012 [update]).

New France
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The territory was divided into five colonies, each with its own administration, Canada, Hudsons Bay, Acadia, Newfoundland, and Louisiana. Acadia had a history, with the Great Upheaval, remembered on July 28 each year since 2003. The descendants are dispersed in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, in Maine and Louisiana in the United States, with popu

Colony of Virginia
–
The Colony of Virginia was the first permanently settled English colony in North America. Newfoundland, with settlements, had been established as a colony by Royal Charter in 1583. American archaeologist William Kelso says Virginia is where the British Empire began and this was the first colony in the British Empire. The colony existed briefly duri

3.
Lines show legal treaty frontiers between Virginia Colony and Indian Nations in various years, as well as today's state boundaries. Red: Treaty of 1646. Green: Treaty of Albany (1684). Blue: Treaty of Albany (1722). Orange: Proclamation of 1763. Black: Treaty of Camp Charlotte (1774). Area west of this line in present-day Southwest VA was ceded by the Cherokee in 1775.

Municipal incorporation
–
A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located, often, this event is marked by the aw

George Washington
–
George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations

General John Forbes
–
John Forbes was a British general in the French and Indian War. Forbes was born on his familys Pittencrieff Estate in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland in 1707, after beginning to study medicine, he decided in his second year as a student to become a soldier and was accepted and commissioned as a lieutenant in the Scots Greys in 1735. He saw action in th

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
–
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, PC, FRS was a British statesman of the Whig group who led the government of Great Britain twice in the middle of the 18th century. Historians call him Pitt of Chatham, or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish from his son, William Pitt the Younger, Pitt was also known as The Great Commoner, because of his long-sta

Mayor of Pittsburgh
–
The Mayor of Pittsburgh is the chief executive of the government of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, as stipulated by the Charter of the City of Pittsburgh. This article is a listing of past mayors of Pittsburgh, prior to the 1816 city charter, the Borough of Pittsburgh had its council elect a Chief Burgess among themselves. Aft

Bill Peduto
–
William Mark Bill Peduto is an American politician who serves as the 60th Mayor of Pittsburgh. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the Pittsburgh City Council from 2002 until 2014. Prior to being elected to City Council, Peduto attended Pennsylvania State University and he ran a consulting business and later served as Chief o

1.
Peduto in 2013

2.
Tunnels

Democratic Party (United States)
–
The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democrati

Pennsylvania House of Representatives
–
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature of the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. There are 203 members, elected for two-year terms from single member districts, following the 2016 elections, the house consisted of 121 Republicans and 82 Democrats. Republican Mike Turzai

2.
Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Jake Wheatley
–
Jake Wheatley, Jr. is a Democratic politician from the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. Wheatley also served in the United States Marine Corps where his service included action in Operation Desert Storm, in 2002, Wheatley ran for the 19th Legislative District Allegheny County. Seven-term incumbent Bill Robinson tried to derail the Wheatley campaign by

Dominic Costa
–
Dominic Eric Costa was an Australian politician. He was born at Warialda, New South Wales and was educated at public schools and he sat in the House until he retired in 1969. Psephos - Adam Carrs Election Archive, Australian Election Archive

Dan Deasy
–
Daniel Dan Deasy is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Deasy attended Bishop Canevin High School and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and he worked as a foreman for the Pittsburgh Department of Public Works before successfully running for Pittsburgh City Council. In addition to working in the House, he is c

Paul Costa
–
Sebastian Paul Costa was an American football tight end. ]He played college football for the University of Notre Dames Fighting Irish. The American Football Leagues Kansas City Chiefs drafted him in his year,1964. He won a job at tight end his rookie year with the Bills. As a rookie, Costa averaged 19.1 yards per catch, for his career, he averaged

Harry Readshaw
–
Harry A. Readshaw III is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 36th District and was elected in 1994. He and his live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and have three children. He graduated from Carrick High School in 1959 and attended Duquesne University from 1959 to 1962 and he graduated from the Pittsburgh Institute

Pennsylvania State Senate
–
The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg, senators are elected for four year terms, staggered every two years such that half of the seats are contested at each election. Even numbered seats and odd num

2.
Pennsylvania State Senate

Jay Costa
–
Jay Costa is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania State Senate who has represented the 43rd District since 1996. He is a member of the Costa political family in Pittsburgh, on November 17,2010, Senate Democrats elected Costa as their new floor leader, succeeding the retiring Bob Mellow. In 2006 Costa voted to pass the Marriage Definition Constit

Randy Vulakovich
–
Randy Vulakovich is a Republican member of the Pennsylvania State Senate for the 38th legislative district and took office January 6,2015. He previously served in the 40th legislative district and he was elected in a special election on August 7,2012. Prior to holding elected office, Vulakovich attended the Allegheny County Police Academy and Duque

1.
Randy Vulakovich

Republican Party (United States)
–
The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party

United States House of Representatives
–
The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. T

Michael F. Doyle
–
He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is based in Pittsburgh and includes most of Allegheny County, a native of Swissvale and graduate of the Pennsylvania State University, Doyle previously served as a member of the Swissvale Borough Council and an aide to state Senator Frank Pecora. He was first elected to Congress in the 1994 Congr

1.
Mike Doyle

2010 United States Census
–
The 2010 United States Census, is the twenty-third and currently most recent United States national census. National Census Day, the day used for the census, was April 1,2010. As part of a drive to increase the accuracy,635,000 temporary enumerators were hired. The population of the United States was counted as 308,745,538, as required by the Unite

List of United States cities by population
–
The following is a list of the most populous incorporated places of the United States. As defined by the United States Census Bureau, an incorporated place includes a variety of designations, including city, town, village, borough, a few exceptional Census Designated Places are also included in the Census Bureaus listing of incorporated places. Con

Urban area
–
An urban area is a human settlement with high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, in urbanism, the term contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets and in urban sociology or urban anthropology it contrasts with natural e

1.
Greater Tokyo Area, the world's most populous urban area, with about 35 million people.

List of United States urban areas
–
Below is a list of urban areas in the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau, ordered according to their 2010 census populations. In the table, UA refers to urbanized area and UC refers to urban cluster, the list includes urban areas with a population of at least 50,000. To qualify as an area, the territory identified according

Metropolitan area
–
As social, economic and political institutions have changed, metropolitan areas have become key economic and political regions. The Greater São Paulo is a term for one of the multiple definitions the large metropolitan area located in the São Paulo state in Brazil. A metropolitan area combines an urban agglomeration with zones not necessarily urban

Combined statistical area
–
A combined statistical area is composed of adjacent metropolitan and micropolitan statistical areas in the United States and Puerto Rico that can demonstrate economic or social linkage. These areas that retain their own designations as metropolitan or micropolitan statistical areas within the larger combined statistical area. The primary distinguis

1.
City
–
A city is a large and permanent human settlement. Cities generally have complex systems for sanitation, utilities, land usage, housing, a big city or metropolis usually has associated suburbs and exurbs. Such cities are associated with metropolitan areas and urban areas. Once a city expands far enough to another city, this region can be deemed a conurbation or megalopolis. Damascus is arguably the oldest city in the world, in terms of population, the largest city proper is Shanghai, while the fastest-growing is Dubai. There is not enough evidence to assert what conditions gave rise to the first cities, some theorists have speculated on what they consider suitable pre-conditions and basic mechanisms that might have been important driving forces. The conventional view holds that cities first formed after the Neolithic revolution, the Neolithic revolution brought agriculture, which made denser human populations possible, thereby supporting city development. The advent of farming encouraged hunter-gatherers to abandon nomadic lifestyles and to settle near others who lived by agricultural production, the increased population density encouraged by farming and the increased output of food per unit of land created conditions that seem more suitable for city-like activities. In his book, Cities and Economic Development, Paul Bairoch takes up position in his argument that agricultural activity appears necessary before true cities can form. According to Vere Gordon Childe, for a settlement to qualify as a city, it must have enough surplus of raw materials to support trade and a relatively large population. To illustrate this point, Bairoch offers an example, Western Europe during the pre-Neolithic, when the cost of transport is taken into account, the figure rises to 200,000 square kilometres. Bairoch noted that this is roughly the size of Great Britain, the urban theorist Jane Jacobs suggests that city formation preceded the birth of agriculture, but this view is not widely accepted. In his book City Economics, Brendan OFlaherty asserts Cities could persist—as they have for thousands of years—only if their advantages offset the disadvantages, OFlaherty illustrates two similar attracting advantages known as increasing returns to scale and economies of scale, which are concepts usually associated with businesses. Their applications are seen in more basic economic systems as well, increasing returns to scale occurs when doubling all inputs more than doubles the output an activity has economies of scale if doubling output less than doubles cost. To offer an example of these concepts, OFlaherty makes use of one of the oldest reasons why cities were built, in this example, the inputs are anything that would be used for protection and the output is the area protected and everything of value contained in it. OFlaherty then asks that we suppose the protected area is square, the advantage is expressed as, O = s 2, where O is the output and s stands for the length of a side. This equation shows that output is proportional to the square of the length of a side, the inputs depend on the length of the perimeter, I =4 s, where I stands for the quantity of inputs. So there are increasing returns to scale, O = I2 /16 and this equation shows that with twice the inputs, you produce quadruple the output

2.
Carnegie Mellon University
–
Carnegie Mellon University is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools, in 1967, the Carnegie Institute of Technology merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to form Carnegie Mellon University. The universitys 140-acre main campus is 3 miles from Downtown Pittsburgh, john Heinz III College of Information Systems and Public Policy, and the School of Computer Science. The university also has campuses in Qatar and Silicon Valley, with degree-granting programs in six continents, Carnegie Mellon consistently ranks in the top 25 in the national U. S. News & World Report rankings. It is home to the world’s first degree-granting Robotics and Drama programs, the university spent $242 million on research in 2015. Carnegie Mellon counts 13,650 students from 114 countries, over 100,000 living alumni, Carnegies vision was to open a vocational training school for the sons and daughters of working-class Pittsburghers. Carnegie was inspired for the design of his school by the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, in 1912 the institution changed its name to Carnegie Institute of Technology and began offering four-year degrees. The Mellon Institute of Industrial Research was founded in 1913 by banker and industrialist brothers Andrew, Mellon in honor of their father, Thomas Mellon, the patriarch of the Mellon family. The Institute began as an organization which performed work for government. In 1927, the Mellon Institute incorporated as an independent nonprofit, in 1938, the Mellon Institutes iconic building was completed and it moved to its new, and current, location on Fifth Avenue. In 1967, with support from Paul Mellon, Carnegie Tech merged with the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research to become Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Mellons coordinate womens college, the Margaret Morrison Carnegie College closed in 1973 and merged its academic programs with the rest of the university. The industrial research mission of the Mellon Institute survived the merger as the Carnegie Mellon Research Institute and continued doing work on contract to industry, CMRI closed in 2001 and its programs were subsumed by other parts of the university or spun off into independent entities. Carnegie Mellons 140-acre main campus is three miles from downtown Pittsburgh, between Schenley Park and the Squirrel Hill, Shadyside, and Oakland neighborhoods, Carnegie Mellon is bordered to the west by the campus of the University of Pittsburgh. Carnegie Mellon owns 81 buildings in the Oakland and Squirrel Hill neighborhoods of Pittsburgh, for decades the center of student life on campus was Skibo Hall, the Universitys student union. Built in the 1950s, Skibo Halls design was typical of Mid-Century Modern architecture, the original Skibo was razed in the summer of 1994 and replaced by a new student union that is fully wi-fi enabled. Known as University Center, the building was dedicated in 1996, in 2014, Carnegie Mellon re-dedicated the University Center as the Cohon University Center in recognition of the eighth president of the university, Jared Cohon. A large grassy area known as the Cut forms the backbone of the campus, the Cut was formed by filling in a ravine with soil from a nearby hill that was leveled to build the College of Fine Arts building. The northwestern part of the campus was acquired from the United States Bureau of Mines in the 1980s, the sculpture was controversial for its placement, the general lack of input that the campus community had, and its aesthetic appeal

Carnegie Mellon University
–
Andrew Carnegie, founder of the Carnegie Technical Schools
Carnegie Mellon University
–
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University
–
Andrew W. Mellon, co-founder of the Mellon Institute
Carnegie Mellon University
–
Hamerschlag and Roberts Halls are two of the teaching facilities of the College of Engineering

3.
PNC Park
–
PNC Park is a baseball park located on the North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It is the home of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the citys Major League Baseball franchise. It opened during the 2001 MLB season, after the implosion of the Pirates previous home. The ballpark is sponsored by PNC Financial Services, which purchased the rights in 1998. PNC Park features a grass playing surface and seats 38,362 people for baseball. Plans to build a new stadium for the Pirates originated in 1991, built in the style of classic stadiums, such as Pittsburghs Forbes Field, PNC Park also introduced unique features, such as the use of limestone in the buildings facade. The park also features a concourse, steel truss work, an extensive out-of-town scoreboard. Constructed faster than most modern stadiums, PNC Park was built in a 24-month span, on September 5,1991, Pittsburgh mayor Sophie Masloff proposed a new 44, 000-seat stadium for the Pittsburgh Pirates on the citys Northside. Three Rivers Stadium, the Pirates home at the time, had designed for functionality rather than architecture. The location of Three Rivers Stadium came to be criticized for being in a portion of the city. Discussions about a new took place, but were never seriously considered until entrepreneur Kevin McClatchy purchased the team in February 1996. Until McClatchys purchase, plans about the remaining in Pittsburgh were uncertain. In 1996, Masloffs successor, Tom Murphy, created the Forbes Field II Task Force, made up of 29 political and business leaders, the team studied the challenges of constructing a new ballpark. Their final report, published on June 26,1996, evaluated 13 possible locations, the North Side site was recommended due to its affordable cost, potential to develop the surrounding area, and opportunity to incorporate the city skyline into the stadiums design. The site selected for the ballpark is just upriver from the site of early Pirates home field Exposition Park, after a political debate, public money was used to fund PNC Park. Originally, a tax increase was proposed to fund three projects, PNC Park, Heinz Field, and an expansion of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. However, after the proposal was rejected in a referendum. Similarly controversial, the proposal was labeled Scam B by opponents

PNC Park
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PNC Park
PNC Park
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A view of the field from upper-level seating
PNC Park
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Skyline of Downtown Pittsburgh from PNC Park
PNC Park
–
The 6th Street Bridge was renamed the Roberto Clemente Bridge in honor of the former Pirate.

4.
Duquesne Incline
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The Duquesne Incline is an inclined plane railroad located near Pittsburghs South Side neighborhood and scaling Mt. Washington. Designed by Samuel Diescher, the incline was completed in 1877 and is 800 feet long,400 feet in height, and is inclined at a 30-degree angle. It is a track gauge of 5 ft. Originally steam powered. It later carried passengers, particularly Mt. Washington residents who were tired of walking up footpaths to the top, Inclines were then being built all over Mt. Washington. But as more roads were built on “Coal Hill” most of the inclines were closed. By the end of the 1960s, only the Monongahela Incline, in 1962, the incline was closed, apparently for good. Major repairs were needed, and with so few patrons, the private owners did little. But local Duquesne Heights residents launched a fund-raiser to help the incline and it was a huge success, and on July 1,1963, the incline reopened under the auspices of a non-profit organization dedicated to its preservation. The incline has since been totally refurbished, the cars, built by the J. G. Brill and Company of Philadelphia, have been stripped of paint to reveal the original wood. An observation deck was added at the top affording a view of Pittsburghs Golden Triangle, the incline is featured in the opening scene of the The Next Three Days trailer. The same scene is featured about halfway through the film and it is also featured in the 1983 film Flashdance. In the 1987 movie, Lady Beware, the characters played by Diane Lane, the Duquesne Incline is a featured Pittsburgh landmark on Yinztagram. Port Authority of Allegheny County, The Inclines The Duquesne Incline, official web site Travel Channel video of Incline View on Google Maps

5.
Cathedral of Learning
–
Standing at 535 feet, the 42-story Late Gothic Revival Cathedral is the tallest educational building in the Western hemisphere and the second tallest university building in the world. It is also the second tallest gothic-styled building in the world, the Cathedral of Learning was commissioned in 1921 and ground was broken in 1926. The first class was held in the building in 1931 and its finished in October 1934. Colloquially referred to as Cathy by Pitt students, the Cathedral of Learning is a frame structure overlaid with Indiana limestone and contains more than 2,000 rooms. It served as home of the universitys College of General Studies until its relocation to Posvar Hall in 2014, the building contains noted examples of stained glass, stone, wood, and iron work and is often used by the university in photographs, postcards, and other advertisements. The basement and floors up to floor 40 are used for educational purposes and these floors include theaters, computer laboratories, language laboratories, classrooms, and departmental offices. The basement contains a black box theater and the floor contains computer labs, language labs, classrooms. Twenty-eight of these serve as functional classrooms while more conventional classrooms are located on the second floor, the first floor also serves as the home to the offices of the Chancellor, Executive Vice Chancellor, and other administration offices, as well as the Nationality Rooms Gift Shop. The fourth floor, which used to be home to the stacks of the universitys library, is now occupied by the McCarl Center for Nontraditional Student Success. The fifth floor housed the main borrowing, reference, and reading rooms of the university library. The Pitt Humanities Center is housed on the sixth floor, additionally, the University Honors College is located on the 35th and 36th floors. The 40th floor balcony also houses a pair of Peregrine falcons. A view from the top is available via a webcam.45 MHz, the building is also one of the host buildings of Pennsylvanias Mock Trial Competition. In 1921, John Gabbert Bowman became the chancellor of the university. At that time, the school consisted of a series of buildings constructed along Henry Hornbostels plan for the campus and included temporary wooden structures built during World War I. His reasoning is summarized in this quote, The building was to be more than a schoolhouse, Bowman looked at a 14-acre plot of land named Frick Acres. On November 26,1921, with aid from the Mellon family, the university was given the $2.5 million plot, One of the foremost Gothic architects of the time, Philadelphian Charles Klauder, was hired to design the tower. The design took two years to finish, with the final plan attempting to fuse the idea of a skyscraper with the tradition

6.
University of Pittsburgh
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The University of Pittsburgh is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In 1787 after the American Revolutionary War, it was founded on the edge of the American frontier as the Pittsburgh Academy and it developed and was renamed as Western University of Pennsylvania by a change to its charter in 1819. For most of its history, Pitt was a private institution, the university also includes four undergraduate schools located at campuses within Western Pennsylvania, Bradford, Greensburg, Johnstown, and Titusville. The 132-acre Pittsburgh campus has multiple contributing historic buildings of the Schenley Farms Historic District, most notably its 42-story Gothic revival centerpiece, the university has an annual operating budget of approximately $2 billion, which includes nearly $900 million in research and development expenditures. It is the second-largest non-government employer in the Pittsburgh region behind UPMC, Pitt is ranked among the top public universities in the United States in both domestic and international rankings, and has been listed as a best value in higher education by several publications. Pitt students have access to arts programs throughout the campus and city. Pitts varsity athletic teams, collectively known as the Pittsburgh Panthers, compete in Division I of the NCAA, primarily as members of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Founded by Hugh Henry Brackenridge as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787, the University of Pittsburgh is one of the few universities and colleges established in the 18th century in the United States. It is the oldest continuously chartered institution of learning in the U. S. west of the Allegheny Mountains, the school began as a preparatory school, presumably in a log cabin, possibly as early as 1770 in Western Pennsylvania, then a frontier. A brick building was erected in 1790 on the side of Third Street. The small two-story brick building, with a gable facing the alley, within a short period, more advanced education in the area was needed, so in 1819 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania amended the schools 1787 charter to confer university status. The school took the name the Western University of Pennsylvania, or WUP, by the 1830s, the university faced severe financial pressure to abandon its traditional liberal education in favor of the state legislatures desire for it to provide more vocational training. The decision to remain committed to liberal education nearly killed the university and it was also during this era that the founder of Mellon Bank, Thomas Mellon, graduated and later taught at WUP. The universitys buildings, along with most of its records and files, were destroyed in the Great Fire of 1845 that wiped out 20 square blocks of Pittsburgh, classes were temporarily held in Trinity Church until a new building was constructed on Duquesne Way. Only four years later, in 1849, this also was destroyed by fire. Due to the nature of these fires, operations were suspended for a few years to allow the university time to regroup. By 1854, WUP had erected a new building on the corner of Ross and Diamond streets, langley was professor of astronomy and physics and remained at WUP until 1891, when he was succeeded by another prominent astronomer, James Keeler. Growing quickly during this period, WUP outgrew its downtown facilities, the university eventually found itself on a 10-acre site on the North Sides Observatory Hill at the location of its Allegheny Observatory

University of Pittsburgh
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Hugh Henry Brackenridge, founder of Pittsburgh Academy, the precursor to the University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
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University of Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
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The University in 1833 at its location on 3rd Avenue in downtown Pittsburgh
University of Pittsburgh
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The Cathedral of Learning, the centerpiece of Pitt's campus and the tallest educational building in the Western Hemisphere

7.
Flag of Pittsburgh
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The flag of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a tricolor flag featuring vertical bands of black and gold, with the citys coat of arms in the centre. In 2004, the flag was ranked 24th best flag design out of 150 city flags by the North American Vexillological Association, in tribute to the flag, all three professional athletic teams in Pittsburgh in the sports of baseball, football and hockey are black and gold. The same shall be parted vertically per pale in three parts, of which the first and shall be black and the second or middle pale gold. Upon the latter shall be blazoned the City arms, as borne upon the City seal, and the same shall be blazoned upon the middle, the length or fly shall be six feet, the depth or hoist four feet six inches or in proportion thereto. The City pennant shall be a piece of gold bunting five feet in length by four feet in width. The City streamer shall be made of materials and colors above indicated two feet in width and fifteen feet in length, or in proportion thereto. The black shall be borne next to the staff, and shall be in length one-fourth the length of the streamer, the phrase Benigno Numine was the motto of the Earl of Chatham. It is generally translated as With the Benevolent Deity or By the Favour of the Heavens, however even then the motto was not implemented until council looked into the matter in November 1958. The city of Pittsburghs coat of arms is based on the arms of William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, the crest of the citys coat of arms, an image of a fortress, represents the city of Pittsburgh, serving as a mural crown of sorts. For crest, Sable a triple-towered castle masoned Argent, history of Flag and seal Flags of the World page for Pittsburghs flag

Flag of Pittsburgh
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Tunnels
Flag of Pittsburgh
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City of Pittsburgh

8.
Seal of Pittsburgh
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The flag of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is a tricolor flag featuring vertical bands of black and gold, with the citys coat of arms in the centre. In 2004, the flag was ranked 24th best flag design out of 150 city flags by the North American Vexillological Association, in tribute to the flag, all three professional athletic teams in Pittsburgh in the sports of baseball, football and hockey are black and gold. The same shall be parted vertically per pale in three parts, of which the first and shall be black and the second or middle pale gold. Upon the latter shall be blazoned the City arms, as borne upon the City seal, and the same shall be blazoned upon the middle, the length or fly shall be six feet, the depth or hoist four feet six inches or in proportion thereto. The City pennant shall be a piece of gold bunting five feet in length by four feet in width. The City streamer shall be made of materials and colors above indicated two feet in width and fifteen feet in length, or in proportion thereto. The black shall be borne next to the staff, and shall be in length one-fourth the length of the streamer, the phrase Benigno Numine was the motto of the Earl of Chatham. It is generally translated as With the Benevolent Deity or By the Favour of the Heavens, however even then the motto was not implemented until council looked into the matter in November 1958. The city of Pittsburghs coat of arms is based on the arms of William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, the crest of the citys coat of arms, an image of a fortress, represents the city of Pittsburgh, serving as a mural crown of sorts. For crest, Sable a triple-towered castle masoned Argent, history of Flag and seal Flags of the World page for Pittsburghs flag

Seal of Pittsburgh
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Tunnels
Seal of Pittsburgh
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City of Pittsburgh

9.
List of nicknames for Pittsburgh
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This article lists nicknames for the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. City of Bridges Pittsburgh boasts more bridges, owing to its location at the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio, Steel City Pittsburgh and the surrounding area was once one of the largest steel producers in the world, gaining it international renown as such. The U. S. Steel Tower remains the headquarters for that company, City of ChampionsPittsburgh has enjoyed numerous sports championships from its three major league sports teams and the athletic programs at its many universities. The Burgh Unlike many cities in America that end in burg, Pittsburgh retains the h at the end of its name, blitzburgh This references the Pittsburgh Steelers, winners of six Super Bowls and famed for their vaunted defense. Sixburgh This is a reference to the six Super Bowls that the Pittsburgh Steelers won, the Golden Triangle This name comes from Pittsburghs shape formed from its three rivers and golden bridges. Benigno Numine Comes from the citys Latin motto and it is generally translated as With the Benevolent Deity or By the Favour of Heaven. The Only City with an EntranceTraveling through the Fort Pitt Tunnel or Liberty Tunnels under Mount Washington yields, for many travelers, river City Paris of AppalachiaPittsburgh is the largest metropolitan area in the entire Appalachian region. Capital of West Virginia So called because many West Virginians migrate to Pittsburgh, the 412412 is the telephone area code for much of Allegheny County, though it covered much more geographically at the time the name was coined, prior to the introduction of 724. Both 412 and 724 are now part of a complex in which the entire region served by those codes is also covered by 878. List of city nicknames in Pennsylvania Lists of nicknames – nickname list articles on Wikipedia

List of nicknames for Pittsburgh
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"The City of Bridges"
List of nicknames for Pittsburgh
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Tunnels

10.
Allegheny County, Pennsylvania
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Allegheny County is a county in the southwestern quarter of the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. As of 2014 the population was 1,231,225, making it the second-most populous county in Pennsylvania, Allegheny County is included in the Pittsburgh, PA Metropolitan Statistical Area. The county is in the Pittsburgh Designated Market Area, Allegheny County was the first in Pennsylvania to be given a Native American name, being named after the Allegheny River. The word Allegheny is of Lenape origin, with uncertain meaning and it is usually said to mean fine river, but sometimes said to refer to an ancient mythical tribe called Allegewi that lived along the river long ago before being destroyed by the Lenape. Not a great deal is known about the inhabitants of the region prior to European contact. During the colonial era various native groups claimed or settled in the area, resulting in a mix that included Iroquois, Lenape, Shawnee. European fur traders such as Peter Chartier established trading posts in the region in the eighteenth century. In 1749 Captain Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville, claimed the Ohio Valley, the captain traveled along the Ohio and Allegheny rivers inserting lead plates in the ground to mark the land for France. Since most of the towns during that era were developed along waterways, therefore, the British sent Major George Washington to try to compel the French to leave their posts, with no success. Having failed in his mission, he returned and nearly drowned crossing the ice-filled Allegheny River, in 1754, the English tried again to enter the area. This time, they sent 41 Virginians to build Fort Prince George, the French got news of the plan and sent an army to take over the fort, which they then resumed building with increased fortification, renaming it Fort Duquesne. The loss of the fort cost the English dearly because Fort Duquesne became one of the points of the French. The first attempt to retake the fort, the Braddock Expedition and it was not until General John Forbes attacked in 1758, four years after they had lost the original fort, that they recaptured and destroyed it. They subsequently built a new fort on the site, including a moat, the site is now Pittsburghs Point State Park. Both Pennsylvania and Virginia claimed the region that is now Allegheny County, Pennsylvania administered most of the region as part of its Westmoreland County. Virginia considered everything south of the Ohio River and east of the Allegheny River to be part of its Yohogania County, in addition, parts of the county were located in the proposed British colony of Vandalia and the proposed U. S. state of Westsylvania. The overlapping boundaries, multiple governments, and confused deed claims soon proved unworkable, in 1780 Pennsylvania and Virginia agreed to extend the Mason–Dixon line westward, and the region became part of Pennsylvania. From 1781 until 1788, much of what had been claimed as part of Yohogania County, Virginia, was administered as a part of the newly created Washington County, Allegheny County was officially created on September 24,1788, from parts of Washington and Westmoreland counties

11.
Pennsylvania
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Pennsylvania /ˌpɛnsᵻlˈveɪnjə/, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state located in the northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The Appalachian Mountains run through its middle, Pennsylvania is the 33rd largest, the 5th most populous, and the 9th most densely populated of the 50 United States. The states five most populous cities are Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie, the state capital, and its ninth-largest city, is Harrisburg. Pennsylvania has 140 miles of shoreline along Lake Erie and the Delaware Estuary. The state is one of the 13 original founding states of the United States, it came into being in 1681 as a result of a land grant to William Penn. Part of Pennsylvania, together with the present State of Delaware, had earlier been organized as the Colony of New Sweden and it was the second state to ratify the United States Constitution, on December 12,1787. Independence Hall, where the United States Declaration of Independence and United States Constitution were drafted, is located in the states largest city of Philadelphia, during the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg, was fought in the south central region of the state. Valley Forge near Philadelphia was General Washingtons headquarters during the winter of 1777–78. Pennsylvania is 170 miles north to south and 283 miles east to west, of a total 46,055 square miles,44,817 square miles are land,490 square miles are inland waters, and 749 square miles are waters in Lake Erie. It is the 33rd largest state in the United States, Pennsylvania has 51 miles of coastline along Lake Erie and 57 miles of shoreline along the Delaware Estuary. Cities include Philadelphia, Reading, Lebanon and Lancaster in the southeast, Pittsburgh in the southwest, the tri-cities of Allentown, Bethlehem, the northeast includes the former anthracite coal mining communities of Scranton, Wilkes-Barre, Pittston City, and Hazleton. Erie is located in the northwest, the state has 5 regions, namely the Allegheny Plateau, Ridge and Valley, Atlantic Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and the Erie Plain. Straddling two major zones, the majority of the state, with the exception of the corner, has a humid continental climate. The largest city, Philadelphia, has characteristics of the humid subtropical climate that covers much of Delaware. Moving toward the interior of the state, the winter climate becomes colder, the number of cloudy days increase. Western areas of the state, particularly locations near Lake Erie, can receive over 100 inches of snowfall annually, the state may be subject to severe weather from spring through summer into fall. Tornadoes occur annually in the state, sometimes in large numbers, the Tuscarora Nation took up temporary residence in the central portion of Pennsylvania ca. Both the Dutch and the English claimed both sides of the Delaware River as part of their lands in America

12.
Geographic coordinate system
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A geographic coordinate system is a coordinate system used in geography that enables every location on Earth to be specified by a set of numbers, letters or symbols. The coordinates are chosen such that one of the numbers represents a vertical position. A common choice of coordinates is latitude, longitude and elevation, to specify a location on a two-dimensional map requires a map projection. The invention of a coordinate system is generally credited to Eratosthenes of Cyrene. Ptolemy credited him with the adoption of longitude and latitude. Ptolemys 2nd-century Geography used the prime meridian but measured latitude from the equator instead. Mathematical cartography resumed in Europe following Maximus Planudes recovery of Ptolemys text a little before 1300, in 1884, the United States hosted the International Meridian Conference, attended by representatives from twenty-five nations. Twenty-two of them agreed to adopt the longitude of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, the Dominican Republic voted against the motion, while France and Brazil abstained. France adopted Greenwich Mean Time in place of local determinations by the Paris Observatory in 1911, the latitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle between the equatorial plane and the straight line that passes through that point and through the center of the Earth. Lines joining points of the same latitude trace circles on the surface of Earth called parallels, as they are parallel to the equator, the north pole is 90° N, the south pole is 90° S. The 0° parallel of latitude is designated the equator, the plane of all geographic coordinate systems. The equator divides the globe into Northern and Southern Hemispheres, the longitude of a point on Earths surface is the angle east or west of a reference meridian to another meridian that passes through that point. All meridians are halves of great ellipses, which converge at the north and south poles, the prime meridian determines the proper Eastern and Western Hemispheres, although maps often divide these hemispheres further west in order to keep the Old World on a single side. The antipodal meridian of Greenwich is both 180°W and 180°E, the combination of these two components specifies the position of any location on the surface of Earth, without consideration of altitude or depth. The grid formed by lines of latitude and longitude is known as a graticule, the origin/zero point of this system is located in the Gulf of Guinea about 625 km south of Tema, Ghana. To completely specify a location of a feature on, in, or above Earth. Earth is not a sphere, but a shape approximating a biaxial ellipsoid. It is nearly spherical, but has an equatorial bulge making the radius at the equator about 0. 3% larger than the radius measured through the poles, the shorter axis approximately coincides with the axis of rotation

Geographic coordinate system
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Longitude lines are perpendicular and latitude lines are parallel to the equator.

13.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci

14.
U.S. state
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A U. S. state is a constituent political entity of the United States of America. There are 50 states, which are together in a union with each other. Each state holds administrative jurisdiction over a geographic territory. Due to the shared sovereignty between each state and the government, Americans are citizens of both the federal republic and of the state in which they reside. State citizenship and residency are flexible, and no government approval is required to move between states, except for persons covered by certain types of court orders. States range in population from just under 600,000 to over 39 million, four states use the term commonwealth rather than state in their full official names. States are divided into counties or county-equivalents, which may be assigned some local authority but are not sovereign. County or county-equivalent structure varies widely by state, State governments are allocated power by the people through their individual constitutions. All are grounded in principles, and each provides for a government. States possess a number of powers and rights under the United States Constitution, Constitution has been amended, and the interpretation and application of its provisions have changed. The general tendency has been toward centralization and incorporation, with the government playing a much larger role than it once did. There is a debate over states rights, which concerns the extent and nature of the states powers and sovereignty in relation to the federal government. States and their residents are represented in the federal Congress, a legislature consisting of the Senate. Each state is represented in the Senate by two senators, and is guaranteed at least one Representative in the House, members of the House are elected from single-member districts. Representatives are distributed among the states in proportion to the most recent constitutionally mandated decennial census, the Constitution grants to Congress the authority to admit new states into the Union. Since the establishment of the United States in 1776, the number of states has expanded from the original 13 to 50, alaska and Hawaii are the most recent states admitted, both in 1959. The Constitution is silent on the question of states have the power to secede from the Union. Shortly after the Civil War, the U. S. Supreme Court, in Texas v. White, as a result, while the governments of the various states share many similar features, they often vary greatly with regard to form and substance

U.S. state
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U.S. states

15.
List of counties in Pennsylvania
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The following is a list of the sixty-seven counties of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the United States of America. The city of Philadelphia is coterminous with Philadelphia County, and governmental functions have been consolidated since 1854, eight of the ten most populous counties are in the southeastern portion of the state, including four out of the top five as well. The Federal Information Processing Standard code, used by the United States government to identify counties, is provided with each entry. FIPS codes are five-digit numbers, for Pennsylvania the codes start with 42 and are completed with the county code. The FIPS code for each county in the links to census data for that county

List of counties in Pennsylvania
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A map of the counties of Pennsylvania in 1836
List of counties in Pennsylvania

16.
French colonization of the Americas
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The French colonization of the Americas began in the 16th century, and continued on into the following centuries as France established a colonial empire in the Western Hemisphere. France founded colonies in much of eastern North America, on a number of Caribbean islands, most colonies were developed to export products such as fish, sugar, and furs. The French first came to the New World as explorers, seeking a route to the Pacific Ocean, major French exploration of North America began under the rule of Francis I, King of France. In 1524, Francis sent Italian-born Giovanni da Verrazzano to explore the region between Florida and Newfoundland for a route to the Pacific Ocean, Verrazzano gave the names Francesca and Nova Gallia to that land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, thus promoting French interests. In 1534, Francis I of France sent Jacques Cartier on the first of three voyages to explore the coast of Newfoundland and the St. Lawrence River and he founded New France by planting a cross on the shore of the Gaspé Peninsula. The French subsequently tried to establish colonies throughout North America that failed, due to weather, disease. A small group of French troops were left on Parris Island, South Carolina in 1562 to build Charlesfort, Fort Caroline established in present-day Jacksonville, Florida, in 1564, lasted only a year before being destroyed by the Spanish from St. Augustine. An attempt to settle convicts on Sable Island off Nova Scotia in 1598 failed after a short time, in 1599, a sixteen-person trading post was established in Tadoussac, of which only five men survived the first winter. In 1604, Saint Croix Island in Acadia was the site of a short-lived French colony, much plagued by illness, the following year the settlement was moved to Port Royal. Samuel de Champlain founded Quebec and explored the Great Lakes, in 1634, Jean Nicolet founded La Baye des Puants, which is one of the oldest permanent European settlements in America. In 1634, Sieur de Laviolette founded Trois-Rivières, in 1642, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve, founded Ville-Marie which is now known as Montreal. Louis Jolliet and Jacques Marquette founded Sault Sainte Marie and Saint Ignace, at the end of the 17th century, René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle established a network of forts going from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes and the Saint Lawrence River. Fort Saint Louis was established in Texas in 1685, but was gone by 1688, antoine de la Mothe Cadillac founded Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit in 1701 and Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, Sieur de Bienville founded La Nouvelle Orléans in 1718. Pierre Le Moyne dIberville founded Baton Rouge in 1719, the French were eager to explore North America but New France remained largely unpopulated. Due to the lack of women, intermarriages between French and Indians were frequent, giving rise to the Métis people, relations between the French and Indians were usually peaceful. Louis XIV also tried to increase the population by sending approximately 800 young women nicknamed the Kings Daughters, however, the low density of population in New France remained a very persistent problem. At the beginning of the French and Indian War, the British population in North America outnumbered the French 20 to 1, France fought a total of six colonial wars in North America. They discover the probe and Port Royal Island, which will be called by Parris Island in South Carolina, on which he built a fort named Charlesfort

French colonization of the Americas
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Governor Frontenac performing a tribal dance with Indian allies.
French colonization of the Americas
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Map of North America (1750) - France (blue), Britain (pink), and Spain (orange)
French colonization of the Americas
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Political map of the Northeastern part of North America in 1664.
French colonization of the Americas
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A new map of the north parts of America claimed by France in 1720, according to the London cartographer Herman Moll.

17.
British Empire
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The British Empire comprised the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It originated with the possessions and trading posts established by England between the late 16th and early 18th centuries. At its height, it was the largest empire in history and, for over a century, was the foremost global power. By 1913, the British Empire held sway over 412 million people, 23% of the population at the time. As a result, its political, legal, linguistic and cultural legacy is widespread, during the Age of Discovery in the 15th and 16th centuries, Portugal and Spain pioneered European exploration of the globe, and in the process established large overseas empires. Envious of the great wealth these empires generated, England, France, the independence of the Thirteen Colonies in North America in 1783 after the American War of Independence caused Britain to lose some of its oldest and most populous colonies. British attention soon turned towards Asia, Africa, and the Pacific, after the defeat of France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, Britain emerged as the principal naval and imperial power of the 19th century. In the early 19th century, the Industrial Revolution began to transform Britain, the British Empire expanded to include India, large parts of Africa and many other territories throughout the world. In Britain, political attitudes favoured free trade and laissez-faire policies, during the 19th Century, Britains population increased at a dramatic rate, accompanied by rapid urbanisation, which caused significant social and economic stresses. To seek new markets and sources of raw materials, the Conservative Party under Benjamin Disraeli launched a period of imperialist expansion in Egypt, South Africa, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand became self-governing dominions. By the start of the 20th century, Germany and the United States had begun to challenge Britains economic lead, subsequent military and economic tensions between Britain and Germany were major causes of the First World War, during which Britain relied heavily upon its empire. The conflict placed enormous strain on the military, financial and manpower resources of Britain, although the British Empire achieved its largest territorial extent immediately after World War I, Britain was no longer the worlds pre-eminent industrial or military power. In the Second World War, Britains colonies in Southeast Asia were occupied by Imperial Japan, despite the final victory of Britain and its allies, the damage to British prestige helped to accelerate the decline of the empire. India, Britains most valuable and populous possession, achieved independence as part of a larger movement in which Britain granted independence to most territories of the empire. The transfer of Hong Kong to China in 1997 marked for many the end of the British Empire, fourteen overseas territories remain under British sovereignty. After independence, many former British colonies joined the Commonwealth of Nations, the United Kingdom is now one of 16 Commonwealth nations, a grouping known informally as the Commonwealth realms, that share a monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. The foundations of the British Empire were laid when England and Scotland were separate kingdoms. In 1496, King Henry VII of England, following the successes of Spain and Portugal in overseas exploration, Cabot led another voyage to the Americas the following year but nothing was ever heard of his ships again

British Empire
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A replica of The Matthew, John Cabot 's ship used for his second voyage to the New World.
British Empire
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Flag
British Empire
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African slaves working in 17th-century Virginia, by an unknown artist, 1670.
British Empire
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Fort St. George was founded at Madras in 1639.

18.
Colony
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In politics and history, a colony is a territory under the immediate political control of a state, distinct from the home territory of the sovereign. For colonies in antiquity, city-states would often found their own colonies, some colonies were historically countries, while others were territories without definite statehood from their inception. The metropolitan state is the state that rules the colony, in Ancient Greece, the city that founded a colony was known as the metropolis. Mother country is a reference to the state from the point of view of citizens who live in its colony. There is a United Nations list of Non-Self-Governing Territories, unlike a puppet state or satellite state, a colony has no independent international representation, and its top-level administration is under direct control of the metropolitan state. The term informal colony is used by historians to refer to a country under the de facto control of another state. The word colony comes from the Latin word colōnia and this in turn derives from the word colōnus, which means colonist but also implies a farmer. Cologne is an example of a settlement preserving this etymology, other, less obvious settlements that began as Roman colonia include cities from Belgrade to York. A tell-tale sign of a settlement once being a Roman Colony is a city centre with a grid pattern. The terminology is taken from architectural analogy, where a column pillar is beneath the head capital, so colonies are not independently self-controlled, but rather are controlled from a separate entity that serves the capital function. Roman colonies first appeared when the Romans conquered neighbouring Italic peoples and these were small farming settlements that appeared when the Romans had subdued an enemy in war. A colony could take many forms, as a trade outpost or a base in enemy territory. Its original definition as a settlement created by migrating from a central region to an outlying one became the modern definition. Kandahar formed as a Greek colony during the Hellenistic era by Alexander the great in 330 BC, alaska, a colony of Russia from the middle 18th century until sold to the United States in 1867. It became the 49th American state in 1959, angola, a colony of Portugal since the 16th century. Australia was formed as an independent country in 1901 from a federation of six distinct British colonies which were founded between 1788 and 1829, barbados, was a colony of Great Britain important in the Atlantic slave trade. It gained its independence in 1966, brazil, a colony of Portugal since the 16th century. Canada, colonized first by France as New France, then under British rule, congo, Democratic Republic of the, a colony of Belgium from 1908 to 1960

Colony
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Puerto Rico, considered by some to be "the world's oldest colony"
Colony
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Chart of non-self-governing territories (as of June 2012 [update]).

19.
New France
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The territory was divided into five colonies, each with its own administration, Canada, Hudsons Bay, Acadia, Newfoundland, and Louisiana. Acadia had a history, with the Great Upheaval, remembered on July 28 each year since 2003. The descendants are dispersed in the Maritime Provinces of Canada, in Maine and Louisiana in the United States, with populations in Chéticamp, Nova Scotia. In the sixteenth century, the lands were used primarily to draw from the wealth of natural resources, in the seventeenth century, successful settlements began in Acadia, and in Quebec by the efforts of Champlain. By 1765, the population of the new Province of Quebec reached approximately 70,000 settlers. In 1763 France had ceded the rest of New France, except the islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, to Great Britain and Spain at the Treaty of Paris, in 1800, Spain returned its portion of Louisiana to France under the secret Treaty of San Ildefonso. However, French leader Napoleon Bonaparte in turn sold it to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803, New France eventually became part of the United States and Canada, with the only vestige remaining under French rule being the tiny islands Saint Pierre and Miquelon. In the United States, the legacy of New France includes numerous placenames as well as pockets of French-speaking communities. In Canada, institutional bilingualism and strong Francophone identities are arguably the most enduring legacy of New France, the Conquest is viewed differently among Francophone Canadians, and between Anglophone and Francophone Canadians. Around 1523, the Florentine navigator Giovanni da Verrazzano convinced King Francis I, late that year, Verrazzano set sail in Dieppe, crossing the Atlantic on a small caravel with 50 men. After exploring the coast of the present-day Carolinas early the year, he headed north along the coast. The first European to discover the site of present-day New York, he named it Nouvelle-Angoulême in honour of the king, verrazzanos voyage convinced the king to seek to establish a colony in the newly discovered land. Verrazzano gave the names Francesca and Nova Gallia to that land between New Spain and English Newfoundland, in 1534, Jacques Cartier planted a cross in the Gaspé Peninsula and claimed the land in the name of King Francis I. It was the first province of New France, however, initial French attempts at settling the region met with failure. French fishing fleets continued to sail to the Atlantic coast and into the St. Lawrence River, French merchants soon realized the St. Lawrence region was full of valuable fur-bearing animals, especially the beaver, which were becoming rare in Europe. Eventually, the French crown decided to colonize the territory to secure, another early French attempt at settlement in North America took place in 1564 at Fort Caroline, now Jacksonville, Florida. Intended as a haven for Huguenots, Caroline was founded under the leadership of René Goulaine de Laudonnière and it was sacked by the Spanish led by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés who then established the settlement of St. Augustine on 20 September 1565. Acadia and Canada were inhabited by indigenous nomadic Algonquian peoples and sedentary Iroquoian peoples and these lands were full of unexploited and valuable natural riches, which attracted all of Europe

New France
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A map of New France made by Samuel de Champlain in 1612.
New France
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Flag
New France
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Champlain's Habitation c. 1608
New France
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A map of western New France, including the Illinois Country, by Vincenzo Coronelli, 1688.

20.
Colony of Virginia
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The Colony of Virginia was the first permanently settled English colony in North America. Newfoundland, with settlements, had been established as a colony by Royal Charter in 1583. American archaeologist William Kelso says Virginia is where the British Empire began and this was the first colony in the British Empire. The colony existed briefly during the 16th century, and then continuously from 1607 until the American Revolution, the name Virginia was first applied by Sir Walter Raleigh and Queen Elizabeth I in 1584. In 1607, members of a joint venture called the Virginia Company founded Jamestown, tobacco became Virginias first profitable export, the production of which had a significant impact on the society and settlement patterns. In 1624, the Virginia Companys charter was revoked by King James I, from 1619 to 1776, the legislature of the Virginia was the House of Burgesses, which governed in conjunction with a colonial governor. Jamestown remained the capital of the Virginia colony until 1699, from 1699 until its dissolution the capital was in Williamsburg and it experienced its first major political turmoil with Bacons Rebellion of 1676. The name Virginia is the oldest designation for English claims in North America, the latter word may have inspired the Queen to name the colony Virginia, noting her status as the Virgin Queen. in Carolina Algonquian, and was not the name of the country as previously misunderstood. Virginia was originally a term used to refer to North Americas entire eastern coast from the 34th parallel north to 48th parallel and this area included a large section of Canada and the shores of Acadia. In gratitude for Virginians loyalty to the crown during the English Civil War, Charles II gave it the title of Old Dominion, Virginia maintains Old Dominion as its state nickname. Accordingly, the University of Virginias athletic teams use Cavaliers as one of their nicknames, earlier attempts had been made by the Spanish in what is now Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, and by the French in South Carolina. Farther south, the Spanish colony of Spanish Florida, centered on St. Augustine, was established in 1565, while to the north, in 1584, Sir Walter Raleigh sent his first colonization mission to the island of Roanoke. This was the first English settlement, although it did not survive and it was a military research expedition with a very narrow focus. In 1587, Raleigh sent another group to attempt to establish a permanent settlement. The first English child born in the New World was named Virginia Dare, the expedition leader, John White returned to England for supplies that same year, but was unable to return to the colony due to war between England and Spain. When he finally did return in 1590, he found the colony abandoned, the houses were intact, but the colonists had completely disappeared. Although there are a number of theories about the fate of the colony, Dare County was named in honor of the baby Virginia Dare, who was among those whose fate is unknown. The word Croatoan was found carved into a tree, the name of a tribe on a nearby island, following the death of Queen Elizabeth I in 1603, King James I ascended to the throne

21.
Municipal incorporation
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A municipal corporation is the legal term for a local governing body, including cities, counties, towns, townships, charter townships, villages, and boroughs. Municipal incorporation occurs when such municipalities become self-governing entities under the laws of the state or province in which they are located, often, this event is marked by the award or declaration of a municipal charter. A city charter or town charter is a document establishing a municipality such as a city or town. The concept developed in Europe during the Middle Ages and is considered to be a version of a constitution. Traditionally the granting of a charter gave a settlement and its inhabitants the right to town privileges under the feudal system, townspeople who lived in chartered towns were burghers, as opposed to serfs who lived in villages. Towns were often free, in the sense that they were protected by the king or emperor. Today the process for granting charters is determined by the type of government of the state in question, in monarchies, charters are still often a royal charter given by the Crown or the state authorities acting on behalf of the Crown. In federations, the granting of charters may be within the jurisdiction of the level of government such as a state or province. In Brazil, municipal corporations are called municípios and are created by means of legislation at the state level. All municipal corporations must also abide by a municipal law which is passed and amended at the municipal level. In Canada charters are granted by provincial authorities, in Germany, municipal corporations existed since antiquity and through medieval times, until they became out of favour during the absolutism. In order to strengthen the spirit, the city law of Prussia dated 19 November 1808 picked up this concept. It is the basis of municipal law. In India, a Municipal Corporation is a local government body. This standard varies from state to state, according to laws passed by state legislatures, the Corporation of Chennai was the first Municipal Corporation in India. It was established on 29 September 1688 by the British East India Company, the second was Hyderabad Municipal Corporation established in 1869 by the Nizam rulers of Hyderabad State. The third was the Calcutta Municipal Corporation, established in 1876, the Bombay Municipal Corporation was established in 1888 by the Bombay Municipal Corporation Act. The Delhi Municipal Council was established in 1911 during the Delhi Durbar when New Delhi was proclaimed to be the new Capital of India and it was elevated to Municipal Corporation level on 7 April 1958 by an Act of Parliament which established the Municipal Corporation of Delhi

22.
George Washington
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George Washington was an American politician and soldier who served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War and he is popularly considered the driving force behind the nations establishment and came to be known as the father of the country, both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington was widely admired for his leadership qualities and was unanimously elected president by the Electoral College in the first two national elections. Washingtons incumbency established many precedents still in use today, such as the system, the inaugural address. His retirement from office two terms established a tradition that lasted until 1940 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt won an unprecedented third term. The 22nd Amendment now limits the president to two elected terms and he was born into the provincial gentry of Colonial Virginia to a family of wealthy planters who owned tobacco plantations and slaves, which he inherited. In his youth, he became an officer in the colonial militia during the first stages of the French. In 1775, the Second Continental Congress commissioned him as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in the American Revolution, in that command, Washington forced the British out of Boston in 1776 but was defeated and nearly captured later that year when he lost New York City. After crossing the Delaware River in the middle of winter, he defeated the British in two battles, retook New Jersey, and restored momentum to the Patriot cause and his strategy enabled Continental forces to capture two major British armies at Saratoga in 1777 and Yorktown in 1781. In battle, however, Washington was repeatedly outmaneuvered by British generals with larger armies, after victory had been finalized in 1783, Washington resigned as commander-in-chief rather than seize power, proving his opposition to dictatorship and his commitment to American republicanism. Washington presided over the Constitutional Convention in 1787, which devised a new form of government for the United States. Following his election as president in 1789, he worked to unify rival factions in the fledgling nation and he supported Alexander Hamiltons programs to satisfy all debts, federal and state, established a permanent seat of government, implemented an effective tax system, and created a national bank. In avoiding war with Great Britain, he guaranteed a decade of peace and profitable trade by securing the Jay Treaty in 1795 and he remained non-partisan, never joining the Federalist Party, although he largely supported its policies. Washingtons Farewell Address was a primer on civic virtue, warning against partisanship, sectionalism. He retired from the presidency in 1797, returning to his home, upon his death, Washington was eulogized as first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen by Representative Henry Lee III of Virginia. He was revered in life and in death, scholarly and public polling consistently ranks him among the top three presidents in American history and he has been depicted and remembered in monuments, public works, currency, and other dedications to the present day. He was born on February 11,1731, according to the Julian calendar, the Gregorian calendar was adopted within the British Empire in 1752, and it renders a birth date of February 22,1732. Washington was of primarily English gentry descent, especially from Sulgrave and his great-grandfather John Washington emigrated to Virginia in 1656 and began accumulating land and slaves, as did his son Lawrence and his grandson, Georges father Augustine

George Washington
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George Washington by Gilbert Stuart, 1797
George Washington
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Washington's birthplace
George Washington
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Washington's map, accompanying his Journal to the Ohio (1753–1754)
George Washington
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A mezzotint of Martha Washington, based on a 1757 portrait by Wollaston

23.
General John Forbes
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John Forbes was a British general in the French and Indian War. Forbes was born on his familys Pittencrieff Estate in Dunfermline, Fife, Scotland in 1707, after beginning to study medicine, he decided in his second year as a student to become a soldier and was accepted and commissioned as a lieutenant in the Scots Greys in 1735. He saw action in the War of the Austrian Succession and in the Jacobite rising of 1745 and he was promoted to a Lieutenant-colonelcy in the Scots Greys in 1750 and in 1757 made Colonel of the 17th Regiment of Foot. When the French and Indian War broke out, Forbes was sent to the fighting in the New World and his first action in North America came in 1757 when he was dispatched to reinforce an attack on the French fortress of Louisburg in what is now Nova Scotia. In December 1757, he was promoted to general and assigned to command an expedition to capture Fort Duquesne. Lt. Colonel George Washington, who had been a member of Braddock’s campaign, accompanied the expedition, a Swiss-born colonel of the Royal American Regiment, Henry Bouquet, served as Forbes second-in-command. In the summer of 1758, Forbes began his campaign to capture Fort Duquesne, rather than move on Fort Duquesne via Braddock’s road, which began in western Maryland, Forbes began his march in eastern Pennsylvania. This decision led to political infighting among the Pennsylvanians and Virginians in his expedition. Both colonies claimed the Ohio River country, Forbes was able to quell the dissent by agreeing to improve Braddocks original road, but travel the route through Pennsylvania, which was longer but required fewer river crossings. This also gave the advantage of forcing the French to divide their assets. With just under 7,000 regular and provincial troops, Forbes began his push from his stores in Carlisle. Forbes authorized a reconnaissance in force, with this defeat, Forbes decided to wait until the spring to attack. In the fall of 1758, Conrad Weiser arbitrated a council at Easton, Pennsylvania and this collapse of Native American support was a factor in the French decision to abandon Fort Duquesne. Soon after his decision to wait, Forbes received word that the French garrison at Fort Frontenac had fallen, Forbes decided to launch an immediate attack on the weakened fort. Forbes divided his command into three columns in preparation to make the assault on the fortress. But the French, who were now outnumbered, abandoned and razed Fort Duquesne before the British arrived. Forbes occupied the fort on 25 November 1758. He immediately ordered the construction of a new fortification to be named Fort Pitt and he also named the settlement between the rivers Pittsburgh, which is the location of modern Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

24.
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
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William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham, PC, FRS was a British statesman of the Whig group who led the government of Great Britain twice in the middle of the 18th century. Historians call him Pitt of Chatham, or William Pitt the Elder to distinguish from his son, William Pitt the Younger, Pitt was also known as The Great Commoner, because of his long-standing refusal to accept a title until 1766. Pitt was a member of the British cabinet and its leader from 1756 to 1761. He again led the ministry, holding the title of Lord Privy Seal. Much of his power came from his brilliant oratory, Peters argues his statesmanship was based on a clear, consistent, and distinct appreciation of the value of the Empire. The British parliamentary historian Peter D. G, Thomas argues that Pitts power was based not on his family connections but the extraordinary parliamentary skills by which he dominated the House of Commons. He displayed a commanding manner, brilliant rhetoric, and sharp debating skills that cleverly utilized broad literary and historical knowledge. Pitt was the grandson of Thomas Pitt, the governor of Madras, known as Diamond Pitt for having discovered and this transaction, as well as other trading deals in India, established the Pitt family fortune. He made further purchases and became one of the dominant political figures in the West Country controlling seats such as the rotten borough of Old Sarum. Williams father was Robert Pitt, the eldest son of Governor Pitt and his mother was Harriet Villiers, the daughter of Edward Villiers-FitzGerald and the Irish heiress Katherine FitzGerald. Both Williams paternal uncles Thomas and John were MPs, while his aunt Lucy married the leading Whig politician, William Pitt was born at Golden Square, Westminster, on 15 November 1708. His older brother Thomas Pitt had been born in 1704, there were also five sisters, Harriet, Catherine, Ann, Elizabeth, and Mary. From 1719 William was educated at Eton College along with his brother, William disliked Eton, later claiming that a public school might suit a boy of turbulent disposition but would not do where there was any gentleness. It was at school that Pitt began to suffer from gout, in 1726 Governor Pitt died, and the family estate at Boconnoc passed to Williams father. When he died the year, Boconnoc was inherited by Williams elder brother. In January 1727, William was entered as a commoner at Trinity College. There is evidence that he was a reader, if not a minutely accurate classical scholar. William diligently cultivated the faculty of expression by the practice of translation and re-translation, in these years he became a close friend of George Lyttelton, who would later become a leading politician

William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
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William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham by Richard Brompton, 1772
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
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William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
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The huge monument to William Pitt the Elder, in the Guildhall, London stands opposite an equally huge monument to his son, William Pitt the Younger in a balanced composition
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham
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Governor Thomas "Diamond" Pitt.

25.
Mayor of Pittsburgh
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The Mayor of Pittsburgh is the chief executive of the government of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States, as stipulated by the Charter of the City of Pittsburgh. This article is a listing of past mayors of Pittsburgh, prior to the 1816 city charter, the Borough of Pittsburgh had its council elect a Chief Burgess among themselves. After the borough rechartered itself as a city, its first seven mayors were selected in a fashion as the Chief Burgesses had been under borough council. It was not until Mayor Samuel Pettigrew in the 1830s that general elections of popular vote were conducted all the citys voters to determine who would hold the mayors office. Pettigrew was both the last selected by mayor and the first generally elected mayor of Pittsburgh. Since 1903, all mayors have been popularly elected, the current mayor, since January 2014, is Democrat Bill Peduto. Biographical Dictionary of American Mayors, 1820-1980

Mayor of Pittsburgh
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Incumbent Bill Peduto since January 6, 2014
Mayor of Pittsburgh
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City of Pittsburgh Coat of Arms
Mayor of Pittsburgh
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Tunnels

26.
Bill Peduto
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William Mark Bill Peduto is an American politician who serves as the 60th Mayor of Pittsburgh. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the Pittsburgh City Council from 2002 until 2014. Prior to being elected to City Council, Peduto attended Pennsylvania State University and he ran a consulting business and later served as Chief of Staff to his predecessor in City Council, Dan Cohen. Peduto was elected to City Council in 2001 and served from 2002 until 2014, during that time, he ran for Mayor of Pittsburgh three times. In 2005, he ran in the Democratic primary but was defeated by Bob OConnor, Peduto again ran in a 2007 special election following OConnors death, however, he dropped out before the primary. He ran for mayor for a time in 2013, this time winning the Democratic nomination. In the 2013 election, Peduto defeated opponents Joshua Wander and Lester Ludwig, after being elected Mayor to succeed the outgoing Luke Ravenstahl, Peduto was inaugurated in January 2014. Bill Peduto was born on October 30,1964, and graduated from Chartiers Valley High School in 1983, after one year at Carnegie Mellon University, Peduto transferred to Pennsylvania State University, pursuing a degree in political science. He dropped out, however, before completing the degree requirements, in 2007, Peduto returned to finish his degree requirements and became the only member of the nine-member Pittsburgh City Council at the time to have a bachelors degree. Later, he received a degree in public policy and management from the University of Pittsburgh. Peduto operated a consulting business and served as general consultant, campaign manager, finance director and other roles for several Democratic candidates. At 28, he served as a director for then-acting Governor Mark Singel. He also worked in Washington, D. C. as an intern to then-U. S, prior to holding a seat on city council, Peduto served as chief of staff to former City Councilman Dan Cohen. In 1996 Peduto was Cohens campaign manager in a challenge to former U. S, representative Bill Coyne in the Democratic primary. Peduto is reported to have urged Cohen to make an issue of Coynes record, the Cohen campaigns subsequent use of negative advertising backfired and contributed to a landslide defeat. After being elected to a term, he assumed office in January 2002. He was subsequently re-elected to two terms in 2005 and 2009. On City Council, he chaired the Committee on General Services, Technology, the Committee is in charge of all contracts and purchases as well as city owned buildings and land

Bill Peduto
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Peduto in 2013
Bill Peduto
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Tunnels

27.
Democratic Party (United States)
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The Democratic Party is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The Democrats dominant worldview was once socially conservative and fiscally classical liberalism, while, especially in the rural South, since Franklin D. Roosevelt and his New Deal coalition in the 1930s, the Democratic Party has also promoted a social-liberal platform, supporting social justice. Today, the House Democratic caucus is composed mostly of progressives and centrists, the partys philosophy of modern liberalism advocates social and economic equality, along with the welfare state. It seeks to provide government intervention and regulation in the economy, the party has united with smaller left-wing regional parties throughout the country, such as the Farmer–Labor Party in Minnesota and the Nonpartisan League in North Dakota. Well into the 20th century, the party had conservative pro-business, the New Deal Coalition of 1932–1964 attracted strong support from voters of recent European extraction—many of whom were Catholics based in the cities. After Franklin D. Roosevelts New Deal of the 1930s, the pro-business wing withered outside the South, after the racial turmoil of the 1960s, most southern whites and many northern Catholics moved into the Republican Party at the presidential level. The once-powerful labor union element became smaller and less supportive after the 1970s, white Evangelicals and Southerners became heavily Republican at the state and local level in the 1990s. However, African Americans became a major Democratic element after 1964, after 2000, Hispanic and Latino Americans, Asian Americans, the LGBT community, single women and professional women moved towards the party as well. The Northeast and the West Coast became Democratic strongholds by 1990 after the Republicans stopped appealing to socially liberal voters there, overall, the Democratic Party has retained a membership lead over its major rival the Republican Party. The most recent was the 44th president Barack Obama, who held the office from 2009 to 2017, in the 115th Congress, following the 2016 elections, Democrats are the opposition party, holding a minority of seats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a minority of governorships, and state legislatures, though they do control the mayoralty of cities such as New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D. C. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the inspiration of the Democratic-Republican Party, founded by Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and that party also inspired the Whigs and modern Republicans. Organizationally, the modern Democratic Party truly arose in the 1830s, since the nomination of William Jennings Bryan in 1896, the party has generally positioned itself to the left of the Republican Party on economic issues. They have been liberal on civil rights issues since 1948. On foreign policy both parties changed position several times and that party, the Democratic-Republican Party, came to power in the election of 1800. After the War of 1812 the Federalists virtually disappeared and the national political party left was the Democratic-Republicans. The Democratic-Republican party still had its own factions, however. As Norton explains the transformation in 1828, Jacksonians believed the peoples will had finally prevailed, through a lavishly financed coalition of state parties, political leaders, and newspaper editors, a popular movement had elected the president

28.
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
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The Pennsylvania House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Pennsylvania General Assembly, the legislature of the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. There are 203 members, elected for two-year terms from single member districts, following the 2016 elections, the house consisted of 121 Republicans and 82 Democrats. Republican Mike Turzai was first elected Speaker of the House on January 6,2015, in 2012, a State Representative district had an average population of 60,498 residents. The house is the largest full-time state legislature in the United States, the Hall of the House contains important symbols to Pennsylvania history and the work of legislators. Speakers Chair, a chair of rank that sits directly behind the Speakers rostrum. Architect Joseph Huston designed the chair in 1906, the year the Capitol was dedicated, mace, the House symbol of authority, peace, order and respect for law rests in a pedestal to the right of the Speaker. Its base is solid mahogany, intricately carved and capped by a globe engraved with the Pennsylvania coat of arms. An American Eagle perches on top, the tradition of the mace may date to the Roman Republic when attendants of Roman consuls carried bundles of sticks wrapped around an axe to enforce order. The tradition is common may also directly from Pennsylvanias English heritage. Murals, a panorama of Pennsylvania history appear in murals by Edwin Austin Abbey. The most commanding of the series hangs behind the Speakers rostrum and it is called The Apotheosis of Pennsylvania Ceiling, a work of art in itself with its ornate geometry of gold leaf buttoned at the center by a charming painted illustration. In The Hours, Abbey represents the passage of time in the form of 24 maidens revolving in an endless circle amidst the moon, the sun, the speakership is the oldest elected statewide office in the Commonwealth. Since its first session in 1682—presided over by William Penn—over 130 house members have elevated to the speakers chair. The house cannot hold a session in the absence of the speaker or his designated speaker pro tempore. Speaker Leroy Irvis was the first African American elected speaker of any legislature in the United States since Reconstruction. Speaker Dennis OBrien was the only minority-party Speaker known in Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania has never had a female speaker. The Pennsylvania House of Representatives has only 40 women out of 203 total representatives in 2017 and this is only 19. 7%, which is below the national average of 23. 1% women in all statewide legislative positions. As of December 1,2016 Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mike Turzai Pennsylvania State Senate Project Vote Smart Specific General Trostle, Sharon, harrisburg, Pennsylvania Department of General Services

Pennsylvania House of Representatives
Pennsylvania House of Representatives
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Pennsylvania House of Representatives

29.
Jake Wheatley
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Jake Wheatley, Jr. is a Democratic politician from the U. S. state of Pennsylvania. Wheatley also served in the United States Marine Corps where his service included action in Operation Desert Storm, in 2002, Wheatley ran for the 19th Legislative District Allegheny County. Seven-term incumbent Bill Robinson tried to derail the Wheatley campaign by revealing a youthful indiscretion that was expunged from Wheatleys record. In 2012, Wheatley apologized to his constituents after his arrest on charges of assault related to an altercation with his fiancee over childcare expenses. In addition, he serves as a member of the Education and Transportation committees, Vice Chair for the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus and he also serves as a Deputy Majority Whip for the House Democratic Caucus. Wheatley is a member of the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, Wheatley serves on the Appropriations, Health and Human Services Education and Transportation. He is the Majority Chairman of the Appropriations Subcommittee on Education and is only the second first-term legislator to serve on that committee. He also serves as Vice Chair for the Pennsylvania Legislative Black Caucus, Vice Chair on the Democratic Policy Committee and Deputy Majority Whip for the House Democratic Caucus

30.
Dominic Costa
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Dominic Eric Costa was an Australian politician. He was born at Warialda, New South Wales and was educated at public schools and he sat in the House until he retired in 1969. Psephos - Adam Carrs Election Archive, Australian Election Archive

Dominic Costa
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Dominic Costa

31.
Dan Deasy
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Daniel Dan Deasy is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Deasy attended Bishop Canevin High School and graduated from the University of Pittsburgh and he worked as a foreman for the Pittsburgh Department of Public Works before successfully running for Pittsburgh City Council. In addition to working in the House, he is currently chairman of the Pittsburgh Water & Sewer Authority. Pennsylvania House of Representatives - Daniel Deasy official PA House website Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus - Daniel Deasy official Party website Profile at Project Vote Smart

32.
Paul Costa
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Sebastian Paul Costa was an American football tight end. ]He played college football for the University of Notre Dames Fighting Irish. The American Football Leagues Kansas City Chiefs drafted him in his year,1964. He won a job at tight end his rookie year with the Bills. As a rookie, Costa averaged 19.1 yards per catch, for his career, he averaged 16.7 yards per catch. In Costas fifth year in pro football, he moved to offensive tackle, after playing eight years for the Bills, he retired for one year, then came out of retirement to play for the Birmingham Americans of the World Football League in 1974 and Birmingham Vulcans in 1975. Costa has a B. A. degree in Communications from Notre Dame and he also has a Masters and Ph. D. from the California Graduate School of Theology. Paul has been in ministry since retiring. He was a pastor for sixteen years, but now travels nationally and internationally as a speaker in churches, conferences and he has co-authored a book with Dr. John Kelly that was published by Regal Book. He died of complications of cancer on October 12,2015

33.
Harry Readshaw
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Harry A. Readshaw III is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for the 36th District and was elected in 1994. He and his live in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and have three children. He graduated from Carrick High School in 1959 and attended Duquesne University from 1959 to 1962 and he graduated from the Pittsburgh Institute of Mortuary Science in 1962. Prior to elective office, he served in the United States Marine Corps Reserve and he has been a funeral director since 1970. Pennsylvania House of Representatives - Harry Readshaw official PA House website Pennsylvania House Democratic Caucus - Representative Harry Readshaw official Party website

34.
Pennsylvania State Senate
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The Pennsylvania State Senate is the upper house of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, the Pennsylvania state legislature. The State Senate meets in the State Capitol building in Harrisburg, senators are elected for four year terms, staggered every two years such that half of the seats are contested at each election. Even numbered seats and odd numbered seats are contested in separate election years, the President Pro Tempore of the Senate becomes the Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania in the event of the sitting Lieutenant Governors removal, resignation or death. In this case the President Pro Tempore and Lieutenant Governor would be the same person, the Pennsylvania Senate has been meeting since 1791. The President of the Senate is the Lieutenant Governor, who has no vote except in the event of a tie vote. Following the 2016 elections, the Senate consisted of 34 Republicans and 16 Democrats, President of the Senate, Mike Stack President Pro Tem of the Senate, Joe Scarnati The Senate is made up of 50 members who are elected by district. As of 2017, the breakdown is 34 Republicans and 16 Democrats. In 2012, a State Senate district had an population of 254,047 residents. Project Vote Smart Pennsylvania House of Representatives President of the Pennsylvania Senate President pro tempore of the Pennsylvania Senate Trostle, Sharon, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania Department of General Services. Pennsylvania State Senate Pennsylvania State Senate information and voting records

Pennsylvania State Senate
Pennsylvania State Senate
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Pennsylvania State Senate

35.
Jay Costa
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Jay Costa is a Democratic member of the Pennsylvania State Senate who has represented the 43rd District since 1996. He is a member of the Costa political family in Pittsburgh, on November 17,2010, Senate Democrats elected Costa as their new floor leader, succeeding the retiring Bob Mellow. In 2006 Costa voted to pass the Marriage Definition Constitutional Amendment and he is strongly supportive of abortion rights and received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood in 2013 and 2014. Costa attended Community College in Allegheny County, A. S. in 1977, after that in 1979 he attended Indiana University of PA, and then in 1989 received his JD at Duquesne University School of Law. Aimed to protect the integrity of our government and maintain the balance of influence in the election of public officials by establishing campaign contribution limits in Pennsylvania. On November 29,2016 Senator Costa redeveloped the site at 7800 Susquehanna Street in Homewood

36.
Randy Vulakovich
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Randy Vulakovich is a Republican member of the Pennsylvania State Senate for the 38th legislative district and took office January 6,2015. He previously served in the 40th legislative district and he was elected in a special election on August 7,2012. Prior to holding elected office, Vulakovich attended the Allegheny County Police Academy and Duquesne University. He served as a sergeant with the Shaler Township Police Department. On May 16,2006, Vulakovich defeated two other Republicans for the right to challenge Flaherty in that Novembers election, Vulakovich defeated Flaherty that November by a 53-47 margin. Vulakovich resigned from the State House on August 29,2012 and he was elected to the seat in the August 7,2012, special election with over 73% of the vote to Browns 27%. In the wake of his election, Vulakovich announced he would resign his State House seat to assume his seat in the State Senate, Vulakovich was sworn in as a state senator on August 29,2012. Vulakovich represents Pittsburghs 11th and 12th wards, he is the only elected Republican representing any portion of Pittsburgh above the county level

Randy Vulakovich
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Randy Vulakovich

37.
Republican Party (United States)
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The Republican Party, commonly referred to as the GOP, is one of the two major contemporary political parties in the United States, the other being its historic rival, the Democratic Party. The party is named after republicanism, the dominant value during the American Revolution, there have been 19 Republican presidents, the most from any one party. The Republican Partys current ideology is American conservatism, which contrasts with the Democrats more progressive platform, further, its platform involves support for free market capitalism, free enterprise, fiscal conservatism, a strong national defense, deregulation, and restrictions on labor unions. In addition to advocating for economic policies, the Republican Party is socially conservative. As of 2017, the GOP is documented as being at its strongest position politically since 1928, in addition to holding the Presidency, the Republicans control the 115th United States Congress, having majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate. The party also holds a majority of governorships and state legislatures, the main cause was opposition to the Kansas–Nebraska Act, which repealed the Missouri Compromise by which slavery was kept out of Kansas. The Northern Republicans saw the expansion of slavery as a great evil, the first public meeting of the general anti-Nebraska movement where the name Republican was suggested for a new anti-slavery party was held on March 20,1854, in a schoolhouse in Ripon, Wisconsin. The name was chosen to pay homage to Thomas Jeffersons Republican Party. The first official party convention was held on July 6,1854, in Jackson and it oversaw the preserving of the union, the end of slavery, and the provision of equal rights to all men in the American Civil War and Reconstruction, 1861–1877. The Republicans initial base was in the Northeast and the upper Midwest, with the realignment of parties and voters in the Third Party System, the strong run of John C. Fremont in the 1856 United States presidential election demonstrated it dominated most northern states, early Republican ideology was reflected in the 1856 slogan free labor, free land, free men, which had been coined by Salmon P. Chase, a Senator from Ohio. Free labor referred to the Republican opposition to labor and belief in independent artisans. Free land referred to Republican opposition to the system whereby slaveowners could buy up all the good farm land. The Party strove to contain the expansion of slavery, which would cause the collapse of the slave power, Lincoln, representing the fast-growing western states, won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency. The party took on the mission of preserving the Union, and destroying slavery during the American Civil War, in the election of 1864, it united with War Democrats to nominate Lincoln on the National Union Party ticket. The partys success created factionalism within the party in the 1870s and those who felt that Reconstruction had been accomplished and was continued mostly to promote the large-scale corruption tolerated by President Ulysses S. Grant ran Horace Greeley for the presidency. The Stalwarts defended Grant and the system, the Half-Breeds led by Chester A. Arthur pushed for reform of the civil service in 1883. The Republicans supported the pietistic Protestants who demanded Prohibition, nevertheless, by 1890 the Republicans had agreed to the Sherman Antitrust Act and the Interstate Commerce Commission in response to complaints from owners of small businesses and farmers

Republican Party (United States)
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Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican U.S. President (1861–1865).
Republican Party (United States)
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Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States (1901–1909)
Republican Party (United States)
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Dwight Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States (1953–1961)
Republican Party (United States)
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Richard Nixon, 37th President of the United States (1969–1974)

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United States House of Representatives
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The United States House of Representatives is the lower chamber of the United States Congress which, along with the Senate, composes the legislature of the United States. The composition and powers of the House are established by Article One of the United States Constitution, since its inception in 1789, all representatives are elected popularly. The total number of voting representatives is fixed by law at 435, the House is charged with the passage of federal legislation, known as bills, which, after concurrence by the Senate, are sent to the President for consideration. The presiding officer is the Speaker of the House, who is elected by the members thereof and is traditionally the leader of the controlling party. He or she and other leaders are chosen by the Democratic Caucus or the Republican Conferences. The House meets in the wing of the United States Capitol. Under the Articles of Confederation, the Congress of the Confederation was a body in which each state was equally represented. All states except Rhode Island agreed to send delegates, the issue of how to structure Congress was one of the most divisive among the founders during the Convention. The House is referred to as the house, with the Senate being the upper house. Both houses approval is necessary for the passage of legislation, the Virginia Plan drew the support of delegates from large states such as Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania, as it called for representation based on population. The smaller states, however, favored the New Jersey Plan, the Constitution was ratified by the requisite number of states in 1788, but its implementation was set for March 4,1789. The House began work on April 1,1789, when it achieved a quorum for the first time, during the first half of the 19th century, the House was frequently in conflict with the Senate over regionally divisive issues, including slavery. The North was much more populous than the South, and therefore dominated the House of Representatives, However, the North held no such advantage in the Senate, where the equal representation of states prevailed. Regional conflict was most pronounced over the issue of slavery, One example of a provision repeatedly supported by the House but blocked by the Senate was the Wilmot Proviso, which sought to ban slavery in the land gained during the Mexican–American War. Conflict over slavery and other issues persisted until the Civil War, the war culminated in the Souths defeat and in the abolition of slavery. Because all southern senators except Andrew Johnson resigned their seats at the beginning of the war, the years of Reconstruction that followed witnessed large majorities for the Republican Party, which many Americans associated with the Unions victory in the Civil War and the ending of slavery. The Reconstruction period ended in about 1877, the ensuing era, the Democratic and the Republican Party held majorities in the House at various times. The late 19th and early 20th centuries also saw an increase in the power of the Speaker of the House

United States House of Representatives
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United States House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
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Seal of the House
United States House of Representatives
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Republican Thomas Brackett Reed, occasionally ridiculed as "Czar Reed", was a U.S. Representative from Maine, and Speaker of the House from 1889 to 1891 and from 1895 to 1899.
United States House of Representatives
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House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller confer with President Barack Obama at the Oval Office in 2009.

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Michael F. Doyle
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He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district is based in Pittsburgh and includes most of Allegheny County, a native of Swissvale and graduate of the Pennsylvania State University, Doyle previously served as a member of the Swissvale Borough Council and an aide to state Senator Frank Pecora. He was first elected to Congress in the 1994 Congressional election, Doyle was born in Swissvale, Pennsylvania, to Irish and Italian parents. He graduated from Swissvale Area High School in 1971, and then enrolled at Pennsylvania State University and he worked in steel mills during his summers in college, and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Community Development in 1975. After college, he worked as director of Turtle Creek Valley Citizens Union and was elected to the Swissvale Borough Council in 1977. In 1979, he work as chief of staff to Pennsylvania State Senator Frank Pecora. Like Pecora, Doyle was once a Republican who later switched parties to become a Democrat, in addition to his work for Pecora, he joined Eastgate Insurance Company as an insurance agent in 1982. He has also introduced legislation that will provide services for adults with autism. However, Doyle does not support federal funds to pay for abortions, excepting cases of rape, incest and this has led to decreasing ratings with pro-gun interest groups such as the NRA and Gun Owners of America. Conversely, he has received ratings from pro-gun control groups. Doyle supports comprehensive immigration reform, voting for a bill that would repeal certain green card limitations and these views have got him negative ratings from interest groups such as English First and the Federation for American Immigration Reform. His immigration reviews resonate stronger with the National Latino Congreso/William C, velásquez Institute and American Immigration Lawyers Association, in which he has received perfect scores from both groups. Liberals have praised him for his stance on issues and his support of net neutrality. He is the sponsor of HR1147, the Local Community Radio Act of 2009 which will expand low-power broadcasting to hundreds of new community radio stations. In 2010, he was given the Digital Patriot Award, along with Vint Cerf, in February 2013, he became one of the sponsors of the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act to expedite open access to taxpayer-funded research. Doyle is a supporter of letting local governments provide Internet services in order to increase competition, improve service. Also, Doyle is a critic of the genocide in Sudan. In a rally on April 28,2007, he urged President Bush to uphold his promise of sending 20,000 peacekeepers to Darfur and he drew loud cheers when he said, If we can have a surge in Iraq, there needs to be one in Sudan

Michael F. Doyle
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Mike Doyle

40.
2010 United States Census
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The 2010 United States Census, is the twenty-third and currently most recent United States national census. National Census Day, the day used for the census, was April 1,2010. As part of a drive to increase the accuracy,635,000 temporary enumerators were hired. The population of the United States was counted as 308,745,538, as required by the United States Constitution, the U. S. census has been conducted every 10 years since 1790. The 2000 U. S. Census was the previous census completed, participation in the U. S. Census is required by law in Title 13 of the United States Code. On January 25,2010, Census Bureau Director Robert Groves personally inaugurated the 2010 Census enumeration by counting World War II veteran Clifton Jackson, more than 120 million census forms were delivered by the U. S. Post Office beginning March 15,2010, the number of forms mailed out or hand-delivered by the Census Bureau was approximately 134 million on April 1,2010. The 2010 Census national mail participation rate was 74%, from April through July 2010, census takers visited households that did not return a form, an operation called non-response follow-up. In December 2010, the Census Bureau delivered population information to the president for apportionment, personally identifiable information will be available in 2082. The Census Bureau did not use a form for the 2010 Census. In several previous censuses, one in six households received this long form, the 2010 Census used only a short form asking ten basic questions, How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1,2010. Were there any additional people staying here on April 1,2010 that you did not include in Question 1, mark all that apply, Is this house, apartment, or mobile home – What is your telephone number. What is Person 1s age and Person 1s date of birth, is Person 1 of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin. Does Person 1 sometimes live or stay somewhere else, the form included space to repeat some or all of these questions for up to twelve residents total. In contrast to the 2000 census, an Internet response option was not offered, detailed socioeconomic information collected during past censuses will continue to be collected through the American Community Survey. The survey provides data about communities in the United States on a 1-year or 3-year cycle, depending on the size of the community, rather than once every 10 years. A small percentage of the population on a basis will receive the survey each year. In June 2009, the U. S. Census Bureau announced that it would count same-sex married couples, however, the final form did not contain a separate same-sex married couple option

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List of United States cities by population
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The following is a list of the most populous incorporated places of the United States. As defined by the United States Census Bureau, an incorporated place includes a variety of designations, including city, town, village, borough, a few exceptional Census Designated Places are also included in the Census Bureaus listing of incorporated places. Consolidated city-counties represent a type of government that includes the entire population of a county. Some consolidated city-counties, however, include multiple incorporated places and this list presents only that portion of such consolidated city-counties that are not a part of another incorporated place. A different ranking is evident when considering U. S. metropolitan area populations, the following table lists the 304 incorporated places in the United States with a population of at least 100,000 on July 1,2015, as estimated by the United States Census Bureau. A city is displayed in if it is a state or federal capital. Five states—Delaware, Maine, Vermont, West Virginia and Wyoming—do not have cities with populations of 100,000 or more, smaller incorporated places are not included. The mean density is 4,128.21 inhabitants per square mile, the median is 3,160.85 inhabitants per square mile. The following table lists the five municipalities of Puerto Rico with a greater than 100,000 on July 1,2016. Census-designated places with populations of at least 100,000 according to the 2010 Census, a CDP is a concentration of population identified by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes. CDPs are delineated for each decennial census as the counterparts of incorporated places such as cities, towns. CDPs are populated areas that lack separate municipal government, but which otherwise physically resemble incorporated places, unlike the incorporated cities in the main list, the US Census Bureau does not release annual population estimates for CDPs. S. Cities that, in past censuses, have had populations of at least 100,000 but have since decreased beneath this threshold or have been consolidated with or annexed into a neighboring city. The percent decline in population from its peak Census count to the most recent Census estimate in 2015, any additional notes of significant importance. Demographics of the United States United States Census Bureau List of U. S. S

List of United States cities by population
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Population tables of U.S. cities
List of United States cities by population
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The ten most populous cities of the United States
List of United States cities by population
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"List of largest cities in the United States" redirects here. For a list of largest cities by area, see List of United States cities by area.
List of United States cities by population

42.
Urban area
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An urban area is a human settlement with high population density and infrastructure of built environment. Urban areas are created through urbanization and are categorized by urban morphology as cities, in urbanism, the term contrasts to rural areas such as villages and hamlets and in urban sociology or urban anthropology it contrasts with natural environment. The worlds urban population in 1950 of just 746 million has increased to 3.9 billion in the decades since, in 2009, the number of people living in urban areas surpassed the number living in rural areas and since then the world has become more urban than rural. This was the first time that the majority of the population lived in a city. In 2014 there were 7.25 billion people living on the planet, Urban areas are created and further developed by the process of urbanization. Urban areas are measured for various purposes, including analyzing population density, historian John Gurda writes, I have tried to uncover Milwaukees civic bedrock - the shifting foundation on which individuals have built their lives and the community has constructed its identity. There is no doubt that the deepest layer of bedrock is economic. In every age, people have chosen to live in areas not because of their climates or landmarks or cultural attractions. It was economic opportunity that brought people to Milwaukee, and it is economic opportunity that keeps them there, I define cities as concentrations of people animated by concentrations of capital. More simply put, money is the root of all cities, official definitions vary somewhat between nations. The ten largest metropolitan areas account for half of the population, about 3 million people live in Buenos Aires City and the Greater Buenos Aires metropolitan area totals around 13 million, making it one of the largest urban areas in the world. The metropolitan areas of Córdoba, Rosario, Mendoza and Tucumán have around 1.3 million inhabitants each and La Plata, seven other provinces have over one million people each, Mendoza, Tucumán, Entre Ríos, Salta, Chaco, Corrientes and Misiones. According to IBGE urban areas already concentrate 84. 35% of the population, while the Southeast region remains the most populated one, with over 80 million inhabitants. The largest metropolitan areas in Brazil are São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Belo Horizonte — all in the Southeastern Region — with 20,12, and 5 million inhabitants respectively. The majority of state capitals are the largest cities in their states, except for Vitória, the capital of Espírito Santo, and Florianópolis, there are also non-capital metropolitan areas in the states of São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina. According to Statistics Canada, an area in Canada is an area with a population of at least 1,000 people where the density is no fewer than 400 persons per square kilometre. If two or more areas are within 2 km of each other by road, they are merged into a single urban area. Accordingly, the new definition set out three types of population centres, small, medium and large

43.
List of United States urban areas
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Below is a list of urban areas in the United States as defined by the United States Census Bureau, ordered according to their 2010 census populations. In the table, UA refers to urbanized area and UC refers to urban cluster, the list includes urban areas with a population of at least 50,000. To qualify as an area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,500 people. These criteria result in large urban agglomerations that encompass multiple urban areas from the 2000 census. The Census Bureau is considering whether to split up the larger agglomerations, but published potential agglomerations in August 2010. S